


Loyalty

by edenbound



Category: The Dark Is Rising
Genre: Angst, Arthurian, Gen, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-02-06
Updated: 2010-02-06
Packaged: 2017-10-07 01:38:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 25,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/59996
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edenbound/pseuds/edenbound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Six must be gathered again, to face the old threat wearing a new face. (Originally inspired by Heather Dale's <a href="http://www.leoslyrics.com/listlyrics.php;jsessionid=D23ED35B902DC29DD29D5FE4B95406D9?hid=Ser4UzRIgrE%3D">Mordred's Lullaby</a>. Draws on a plethora of Arthurian legends.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _Guileless son, each day you'll grow older  
> Each moment I'm watching my vengeance unfold  
> The child of my body, the flesh of my soul  
> Will die in returning the birthright he stole. _  
> -Heather Dale, "Mordred's Lullaby"

"Hey, Jane, where're you going? There's plenty of time to go out later!" Barney leaned out of the hotel window to look down at her, grinning a little. His pale blond hair was sticking up in all directions, ruffled by the breeze that was whipping her own hair up around her face. "You're supposed to be unpacking!"

"I'm just going outside for a bit," she called back, waving at him. "I won't go far!"

"Don't go up to see Bran without us!"

Jane rolled her eyes and waved at Barney again before running across the car park of the Trefeddian to look round at the countryside. It hardly seemed to have changed in the years since they'd been there last: it was the same hills, the same buildings, like the same world caught out of time and preserved just for her. It made her smile. A few years ago she might have had to scramble up on the wall to see over it, but she found that she was tall enough just to look over it.

"Hullo," someone behind her said, startling her. She hadn't felt anyone's eyes on her. She spun round to find a young man standing just behind her, as if he'd come out of nowhere -- he was older than her, she thought: maybe twenty or so. He had dark hair and dark eyes, and his skin seemed terribly pale in contrast. He grinned at her. When he spoke, his accent was unidentifiable, and Jane couldn't decide if he was Welsh or not. "Sorry, did I startle you?"

"A bit," she said, and she reached up to push her hair back into place, suddenly self conscious.

"My name is Michael," he said, sticking his hand out to shake hers.

"Jane," she said, putting her hand in his, surprised at the coolness of his skin. "Do you live around here?"

"In Tywyn, yes. I moved here recently, though -- don't expect a tour of the hills from me."

"Oh, that's okay. We've been here before. Me and my family, I mean. When I was twelve, anyway. And we have friends here. Well, one at least. Bran Davies, from Clwyd Farm. I don't suppose it's changed much around here, and anyway, Bran will show us if it has. I don't suppose you've met Bran?"

"I know _of_ him," Michael said, shrugging. "The albino, yes? He is pretty distinctive."

"Yes, he's an albino." She cast a quick look at him, but she couldn't catch any hint of -- well, anything, in particular.

"Well..." Michael shrugged again and smiled at her, quick and charming. "Maybe you could show me around a little, since you seem to know the area better than me. Tomorrow, maybe. I will have more time then. Now I should probably be getting home."

"I should probably go back inside," Jane said, suddenly remembering the bags propped against the wall in her room waiting to be unpacked and all the things her parents had said about talking to strangers. They wouldn't be very happy if they saw her out in the car park speaking to a young man she'd never seen before. She smiled back at Michael apologetically. "It would be nice to see you tomorrow, but I don't know where you live."

"That's alright," he said. "I can wait here for you."

Jane hesitated, and then nodded. He seemed like a nice kind of person, anyway, and he wasn't that much older than her, after all. "Okay, I'll meet you here at, um... four in the afternoon?"

"That will be fine."

"Bye, then," she said, at the same moment as Barney's window swung open again and Simon stuck his head out.

"Come on, Jane! Mother wants you to be unpacked by teatime!"

"Okay, I'll be in, just give me a minute!" Jane called back, turning to Michael again as Simon withdrew and shut the window. "I really have to go now, I'm sorry."

"That's alright," he said again, and he smiled at her again too. For a moment Jane hesitated, and then turned and ran over to the hotel doors as Michael began to walk out of the car park and towards the road. By the time she looked back into the car park, he had apparently already gone out of sight. Jane smiled to herself for a minute, thinking of how nice his smile had been, and then hurried inside to do her unpacking, humming all the while.

\---

They stand on a hill, a small group -- five together and then one standing alone. They recognise it when they look around, and flashing unbidden into their minds comes a sword -- one remembers how it fit in his hand, how it felt made for him, and how perhaps it _was_ made for his hand only to wield. Another remembers how a lump had been in his throat, seeing the young lad so. The boy's head was up, his eyes bright, so that he looked ready to take on the great responsibility that had to be too much for his slim shoulders. Another feels again the upswell of excitement, the quickness of his breath and the tightness of his chest. He was so small against so great an uprising, but not alone. Another remembers living power in her hand, bright, bronze, and her heart pounding fast, too fast. The last of the five looks around at it all for a moment, the hill and the six of them standing there, together, and thinks that this isn't quite right, and then he shakes his head and tells himself it's just a dream anyway.

The sixth turns to them, and he's at once a young boy and a young man; either way his eyes are the same, old and wise and full of knowing and pain. The girl takes a step toward him, and the one who held the sword moves to his side.

"What is it, Will?" he asks.

"I'm just dreaming, aren't I?" the fifth asks, swallowing hard.

"No," the one called Will says, gently. "No, Simon. You're remembering. In a dream, yes, but you are starting to remember."

"I don't feel as if I remember much at all," says the girl, biting her lip hard.

"It's hard, remembering," Will says, still gently, so gently. "You have to relive everything. Forgetting takes things away, strips away all the little links throughout your lives. To remember what I need you to know, you need to remember your whole lives, each of you. But don't fear, Jane."

"None of us are afraid," says the boy who had been so excited. "I have a feeling we've faced worse."

Will's face lights up with laughter for a moment, just a moment. "You have indeed faced worse than this, Barney. But you will face worse again in remembering. I am sorry."

The man, older than the rest of them, old enough to know how very young the others still are, turns his eyes to Will. He has been silent all this time. "Why am I here? I wanted to forget... There was something terrible I had to forget, and I think I would have been glad of the forgetting if I had known..."

"I am sorry," Will says, again.

"It's time, then," the one who held the sword says, and they all look at him and remember him, at the end: the crystal arcing up, blazing into life as he swung it up, cutting the silver from the tree. Bran, they remember, the Pendragon, the son of --

The son of --

"It's time to remember," Will says, quietly. He closes his eyes and like it's a compulsion, the others all slowly close their eyes too. Simon feels water around him, Barney crawls through a tiny cave, Jane faces a monster so terrible that her heart nearly fails her. Bran is lost in a place of mirrors, and John sees his wife again transformed, taken, lost. Simon runs, breathless and aching, Bran's fingers brush over the strings of a harp that sounds so beautiful it could bring the tears to his eyes, Jane speaks to an old, tired lady --

They all hear his voice once more, before the hillside recedes entirely and they drown in the memories -- darkness, deliverance, white bones and ribbons, strange writing on the side of a cup -- and such a sense of loss amidst triumph. Such a terrible, terrible loss.

"Remember," Will says, and that's all, and he's gone.

\---

"Bah, I thought we'd never escape," Barney said. He glanced back at the hotel over his shoulder and made a face. "As if they really expected us to hang round with them _all day_."

"It is a family holiday, Barney," Simon said, patiently. "We'll be expected to spend _some_ time with them."

"Still," Jane said. Then she sighed. "I had such a weird dream last night. I feel really restless, now. I think I need to get out in the fresh air like this and maybe -- maybe run or something."

"Funny," Barney said, absently. "I had a weird dream last night, too. Bran was in it, actually. He -- " Barney closed his mouth all of a sudden, stopping in his tracks. "It wasn't a dream, Jane! We were remembering! Don't you remember what Will said? Don't you remember the grail and seeing Bran with his sword -- what was it called? It had a name, didn't it? -- and..." He trailed off, looking at their blank faces. "Come on, surely I'm not the only one?"

Jane frowned, stopping as well. "Are you sure that wasn't just all part of the dream? I mean, it's weird we both dreamed the same thing, or something like, but..."

Barney scowled at her a little, crossing his arms in front of him. "It wasn't just a dream, remember? Come _on_ Jane -- and Simon, you were in it too, you _have_ to remember. There was us three and that man, John Rowlands, and Will and Bran. And it was all about the grail, and I remembered crawling in that horrid dark cave all over again -- come _on_."

It was probably the whine of frustration in his voice that made Jane consider it, more than anything. She crinkled her eyebrows together, thinking about the whole weird dream, remembering again the clearness of it. The smell of the sea in Trewissick. The boiling of the waters around her, and the Greenwitch, eternally childlike...

Her voice came out a little croaky and she had to clear her throat. "I remember."

"I had the same dream," Simon said, starting to walk again. He hadn't stopped when they had, and Barney had to run to catch up, while Jane scrambled in a rather unladylike manner over a few stones to reach Simon's side again.

"Well?"

"It doesn't mean anything," he said, shrugging. "We're all in the same family -- I'm sure it stands to reason we dream of the same things once in a while, and anyway, it's probably just memories from when we were children. We all had such good imaginations then -- we probably played something and imagined it was true, or something."

Neither of his siblings knew what to say to that. They all stayed silent as they carried on up towards Clwyd Farm -- sometimes Barney put his hand out to help Jane when they took a short cut and the ground was rough and uneven, but mostly they remained withdrawn, each thinking their own private thoughts. It didn't take long for Simon to brighten up, forgetting the dreams, and Jane began humming to herself and thinking about four o' clock in the afternoon. Barney began to trail behind after a while, frowning as he thought about the memories that all of a sudden seemed to make the landscape around him just a little more threatening, as well as more familiar.

He was hardly surprised when he heard someone shouting their names and they looked up to see two figures on the side of the hill, one waving at them, the other simply standing, straight and still. "Will!" he called back, breaking into a run, and beside him Simon and Jane started to run, too -- the latter hampered a little by her long skirt.

"Croeso nôl," Bran said, when they got close enough. He smiled just a little. Barney saw that he'd grown rather tall, still half-lanky from adolescence and yet growing into a man's strength already. His eyes were as strange as they'd always been: strange and secretive and mystical in the plain, ordinary world. "Welcome back, that means, for you Sais."

"Were you waiting for us?"

"Yes," Will said, and Barney turned to look at him. He'd grown -- broadened, too -- but he was still less impressive than Bran: shorter, stockier, plainer. His eyes, though... they were really something. Barney was sure that if he tried for a thousand years he'd never be able to capture Bran _or_ Will. When Jane and Simon arrived as well, Will smiled at them all. "I need you all to help me, as you know from your dreams last night. We're just waiting for one more person."

"This is awfully convenient," Simon said, shoving his hands deep into his pockets. "I mean, we all end up in Wales, we all supposedly have the same dream that isn't really a dream -- "

"It is the doing of the Light," Will said, mildly. Bran did not say anything.

"I don't -- "

"Wait and see, Simon," Jane said. She slipped an arm through his and held on. "I want to know more about all this, even if it is... imagination."

Barney thought he was the only one that saw the troubled look that passed between Will and Bran, then, and afterwards he decided he must have imagined it. He bit his lip hard, but didn't say anything, instead turning to look at someone who was walking along towards them with an easy, long-legged stride. "The sixth?" he asked, and Bran smiled just a little.

"Yes," he said, waving to him, and then speaking to him when he came close enough. "P'nawn da, John. Sut dach chi?"

For a moment, the man stood still and took them all in, and then he smiled back, a slow, quiet kind of smile. "Dim yn ddrwg, Bran. Not bad at all, if it weren't for strange dreams disturbing my sleep. Anything you want to tell me about that?"

Barney realised all of a sudden that there was a kind of anger in the man's face: not a violent one, but all the same, it was anger, a kind of resentment. He expected Bran to say something -- somehow it seemed to be his territory, what with the man being Welsh and all -- but Will stepped forward and put a hand on the man's shoulder. It surprised Barney all over again how tall Will had become -- not as tall as Bran, but of a height with John Rowlands.

"I'm sorry. You know I am."

"You said, yes," John said, and sighed deeply. "What is it your people need of me now? Another terrible choice?"

"I will not hold you against your will -- I never will," Will said. He turned to look at them all again. "I only know that there is another threat, that I felt the need to gather those who knew of the Light again. I am not... I'm not supposed to do this, it was supposed to be me alone from the moment my people left Earth and onwards, but..."

"Nobody's any good alone," Bran said. He shrugged. "I, for one, want to help you, no matter what it is."

"I do, too," Barney said, hastily, casting a wary glance sideways at Simon though he knew he wouldn't really care if Simon mocked him for it. Simon opened his mouth to say something, but Jane got there first.

"Me too," she said, looking at Bran. "I'm glad I remember."

Barney didn't think he was imagining Bran's sudden happiness, because he was smiling. He couldn't remember seeing Bran smile so very much when they were younger, so he memorised the sight. He felt a little glad that Bran seemed less wild and lonely and fiercely apart than he had when they'd first known each other.

"I'll do whatever you need me to," John said, at last. Simon didn't say anything. For a long moment, Will and Bran seemed to be both leaving a space for him to say something -- anything -- and then Will shook his head, cutting that space short.

"Well then, now that we're six again, I suppose we should talk. I'm not sure what to say, though. I know little more than you do yourselves, really."

Jane noticed how frustrated Will seemed, then, but in that same moment Barney went dead pale and reeled backwards. It was John Rowlands who caught him, before Simon had so much as moved and before Bran had quite gotten to him. Barney's eyes were wide open, but the whites were showing horribly, and he was shaking. Bran stopped and stood stock still.

"Is he having a fit or something?" Simon asked, after a horrible pause, and Jane reached out for him, grabbing his hand and holding on tightly because she had a sudden sickening feeling that that was _exactly_ what was happening. Neither Will or Bran moved.

"It's okay," Will said, gently as ever, but that was all.

"Aren't we going to -- " Simon started, and then he was cut off by Barney himself. His voice sounded strange and horrible, distorted as if it came from a radio not quite properly tuned to a station.

"Blood of your blood, the threat comes," he said, to Bran, shaking again in John Rowlands' hold. "Son of your same father, born of the Dark as you of the Light."

Jane noticed how Bran drew himself up as he listened, noticed the way he drew into himself. He seemed, as he had sometimes before, somehow more kingly, his head held high and his eyes piercing. Will, at his side, had a hand on his arm and a strange look -- half triumph, half fear -- on his face. Jane tightened her hold on Simon as he tried to move toward Barney, suddenly sure that this was something they shouldn't interrupt.

"Your brother," Barney said, weakly, in a voice more like his own. And then he cleared his throat and it flickered back to the other voice, suddenly so deep it sounded ridiculous coming from his still rather slight and skinny body. "Heed the warning already given -- "

Simon lurched out of Jane's grip as Barney broke off, swaying on his feet, but John held him tight and didn't let him fall. For a moment there was silence and then Barney's eyes returned to normal and he took a step away from John, trembling all over.

"What was that...?"

"Prophecy," Will said, slowly. "True prophecy. Barney's own gift, like that given to Cassandra of Troy, though no one believed her... Not a rhyme handed down and memorised by all from those who knew, but a true seeing of what is, and what may yet be. And what was, I think, too. 'Heed the warning already given'..."

"What does it _mean_?" Bran asked, suddenly fierce, rounding on Will. "Blood of my blood, son of my same father, born of the Dark...?"

"Mordred," he said, after a moment's thought. "Your half-brother."

"Mordred?"

"Son of Arthur and his sister Morgan Le Fay," Barney said, and John shook his head.

"He was said to be the son of Arthur and his sister Morgause. Anna, she's sometimes called."

The look on Bran's face was blank disbelief. "His sister?"

Will nodded. "Some say that Morgan and Morgause were one and the same. It doesn't really matter, though. Morgause is certainly less well-known than Morgan, known for having an affair with a knight and being killed by her son Gaheris because of it, rather than Morgan's enduring reputation for being a witch. If Mordred is the problem..."

Barney cast an almost sulky look at John. "There are different stories about how Mordred came to be born. Some of the earliest stories have him be Morgause's legitimate child with King Lot, while the later ones say he was the son of Arthur."

"Early stories could have been ploys to try and 'prove' Mordred's legitimacy by making everyone believe it," Will said, thoughtfully. He smiled at Barney. "Go on. You know more about this than almost any of us."

Barney nodded. "Okay. Um... some of the stories had Morgause and Arthur having sex by accident. I don't quite get how that worked, actually, I mean, you'd think they'd've noticed... and another involved trickery. There was another one too, but... that one doesn't matter. It's only really more modern stories that have Mordred's mother being Morgan, anyway. So John's right, mostly."

Bran's voice sounded strange and tight. "Another story?"

Barney winced a little. "There was a story that Arthur raped his sister. But I don't believe it."

"It's not true," he said, flatly. There was a short silence and then Simon cleared his throat.

"The problem with all this is that Mordred's supposed to be dead, isn't he? Even I know that much. He died in the same battle as Arthur."

"Arthur didn't die," John, Barney and Bran said, almost simultaneously. Will smiled ruefully as if he'd been about to say the same thing.

"Bran's father went to the Light, but men probably did believe that he died. The legends about him are little more than that, now, unfortunately. Perhaps Mordred was simply a literary device, in the battle of Camlann, and perhaps there was no such battle."

"Can't you find out for yourself, if you can travel in time?"

"I could, but it isn't a period of history I really belong in... I was to work for this time, my master for the time of Arthur." Will shrugged. "Again, it doesn't really matter. Mordred could have simply escaped through the cracks of time, or perhaps he wasn't there in the first place. I don't know. I do know that Arthur supposedly had other sons -- Gwydre, he was killed by a boar, Loholt, Amhar -- "

"Call it Mordred, until we find out otherwise," Bran said, impatiently. "That isn't the important part. We need to know what to do about it."

"Can we discuss it another day?" Jane asked, biting her lip. "I promised my friend I'd meet him down at the Trefeddian at four."

Bran looked up at her, his eyes narrowing. "A friend? You've a friend round here?"

"Why shouldn't I have a friend round here?" she asked. She shrugged. "I'm going to go. I'll see you tomorrow, Bran, Will!"

"See you," Will said, pushing his hands into his pockets. They all watched her go, Bran with a frown twisting his mouth. Nobody said anything until she was out of earshot, moving swiftly down the slope in the direction of the Trefeddian. And then Barney started to speak, in that strange voice he'd used before, turning towards Simon and looking at him with blank eyes.

"A darkness comes close," he said, and that was all. Will frowned slightly, obviously wondering why the warning had gone to Simon, but he didn't say anything. Bran was the one to catch Barney's arm and support him as he came out of it again, and he pushed him down to sit in the grass. After some hesitation, the others all sat too, moving in close to talk. John looked the most awkward of all of them.

"So... what does this all mean?" he asked Will, looking as uncomfortable as he did incongruous. "I mean... young Barney making predictions and Bran-bach having a brother and..."

"The prophecies..." Will took a deep breath. "That's difficult. Barney's always had the gift. It was dormant until it was woken by the Dark, when a man from the Dark asked him to look into oil and water in the grail. But that was only one way to open the... the channel, if you will, and it fell dormant again when he was made to forget all about the grail... Now he remembers, well, he's old enough now to start learning to control the gift, and for it to start controlling him."

"It's going to control me?" Barney asked, frowning. Simon shifted uncomfortably.

"Not in the sense you mean," Will said, quickly. "It just... it will come sometimes, unbidden, as it just did. The more you use it and learn how to use it, the easier it will become to wield it, to stop visions just happening as they will."

Barney nodded slowly. He looked almost pleased. "I suppose I'm going to be quite useful to you, then."

"Perhaps," Will said. "As it is, we have no idea what to expect, except that thanks to you we have a clue -- it's one of Arthur's sons, and therefore Bran's brother, but..."

"Born of the Dark as I am of the Light," Bran said, thoughtfully. "We don't really need to know more. He will want to bring back the Dark, to plunge the world into chaos..."

"That's what I remained on Earth to prevent."

"And why you returned my memories to me..."

There was a long silence then. John didn't say anything, but his eyes were on Will and Bran, like he was trying to read what they were thinking. Simon felt terribly uncomfortable, with Will and Bran so obviously believing in what they were saying so strongly, and even John -- a supposedly sensible and steady adult -- buying into it all. Barney was sat peacefully, watching a bee fly between a few patches of flowers nearby, and Simon realised he had no idea what he thought about what was going on with Barney. He wondered if he should mention those queer fits to his parents, and yet... Barney seemed fine now. Maybe he was just putting it on. Simon sighed to himself.

"How am I supposed to fight this Mordred, anyway?" Bran asked, after another few moments silence, lifting his head. He was looking at Will. "Guns hardly seem appropriate, but obviously I don't have a sword anymore... I gave Eirias to my father, and there's no way I can get it back now."

"Eirias is gone," Will agreed.

"So... what do we do?"

"I don't know," Will said. He got to his feet, brushing himself off. He looked as if he very much wanted to give into frustration. "I'm going to go for a walk and think. We can talk about this some more tomorrow."

"I'll come with you," Bran said, getting up, and within a few moments John Rowlands and Simon and Barney were all alone on the Welsh hillside, thinking their own thoughts, fearing their own fears. None of them said anything, and after a few minutes John, too, stood up, and went off to get to work.


	2. Chapter 2

It was a lovely day, again. Will sat on the hillside, his knees drawn up to his chest and his arms wrapped around them, and watched. He watched everything: the tiny specks that were sheep and a dog and John Rowlands in a field down below, Bran and his father earnestly discussing something not so far away, and Simon Drew climbing up the slope towards him with a troubled look on his face. It was the kind of day when Bran said that the Welsh weather was conspiring to keep the English visitors happy, the kind of day Bran insisted wouldn't last.

He was probably right, Will thought. Storm clouds were coming, after all. Literal _and_ metaphorical ones.

He was startled out of his line of thought when Simon plopped down next to him, muttering a greeting.

"Bore da," he said in reply, smiling a little.

Simon looked up. "Is that good morning, in Welsh?"

"Yes."

"Didn't know you could speak Welsh," he said, looking down again. Will wanted to tell him to look up: look at the sky, look at the green land, turn his face to the light and take it in while he could. He sighed.

"I can speak any language I choose," he said, very softly, almost regretfully. It was, after all, one of those talents that kept him apart from the human race in a general sense, no matter how close he was to certain members of it. Then he forced himself to brighten up, looking sidelong at Simon. "So what is troubling you today?"

"This whole _thing_," Simon said, after a pause. "All of it. Stupid dreams, Barney doing a crazy voice and acting weirdly, you saying you're not even human... I'm getting ready for A Levels. That's the only thing that I should be worrying about. I don't have _time_ for this. I know -- I know you think this is really important, but just... hear me out, okay?"

"I'm listening," Will said. He sounded very patient, almost gentle.

"I don't think you're any better than me. I... I know Jane and Simon believe it, but all these memories, they don't feel like _mine_. It doesn't feel like this is my problem, if it's even a problem at all and not just in your heads. I'm not saying you're insane or anything, and even John Rowlands believes you and he's an _adult_, but..."

There was a long silence. Simon cleared his throat.

"Will?"

Will sighed, looking earnestly at Simon. "Simon... I understand everything you're saying. Honestly, sometimes I wonder if I'm mad, too, since there's no one of my kind left on Earth. Sometimes I think I just dreamed it all, but I don't have the luxury of hiding from what I have to do. The Light is real, Simon. And so is the Dark. At your age... at your age you're more susceptible than, say, Barney, because you have so much on your mind and you're so full of doubts, about everything. So the Dark can get to you and in turn make it harder for you to believe in the Light. All I can say is that the Light will never force you to fight. I shouldn't be bringing you into this to begin with. You can stay out of the whole struggle, if you so choose."

"You talk as if you're a grown up," Simon said, awkwardly, trying to break some of the tension that seemed to make the air around Will thrum. Will didn't smile.

"I haven't been a child since my eleventh birthday, when I found out what I was. Not a normal child, anyway."

There was another uncomfortable silence. Will closed his eyes, feeling the warmth of the sun on his face for a moment, feeling the slight warmth of Simon's arm pressed against his still. He tried to take in the day, the sun and the way everything was _working_, all parts of a whole. And then he felt it: a sudden cold, something that had nothing to do with the weather. He had time to jump to his feet before the power swept around him, forcing him to close his eyes and listen only to an intruding voice.

"Hail, Old One," it said, in the Old Speech.

Even as he rebelled against the almost-control, Will knew that it was not the voice of the Dark itself, but that of one of the Dark's tools. Most likely more dangerous than Caradog Prichard had been, partly by virtue of being less mad. One that had chosen that path rather than simply drawn onto it unwittingly like Caradog Prichard, bad man as he had been. It was the voice of someone who had not become part of the Dark before the time of its fall, and so had not fallen with it. That made the person who _owned_ the voice one of the reasons Will had remained on earth.

Considering this, he felt he remained remarkably calm.

"Hail, man of the Dark," he said.

"You're very young," the voice said, as if in surprise. "Very young to serve those who stole my birthright. I am Mordred, son of Arthur ap Uther and the lady Morgan Le Fay."

"You are very young to try facing the wrath of the Light."

"There is only you," he said -- amused, then. "All alone on this earth, the youngest and weakest..."

"I am not a mortal, Mordred, to doubt the cause I serve." Will made a tiny gesture, breaking the connection enough that his head felt somewhat clearer. There was still a buzzing in his ears, and he couldn't see the hillside or the person speaking to him, but he was protected. Inside, a voice that sounded much like Merriman's chided him for not taking greater care in the first place. "And you had no birthright."

"I should have been the champion of the Light, not my little brother."

"You -- " Will started, and then flinched awake to Simon shaking him vigorously, hands on his shoulders. Simon's face was horribly pale.

"What's going on, Will? First Barney going into strange trances and then you! This is way over our heads. Both of you really need to see someone, get something done..." He trailed off, taking his hands off Will's shoulders and taking a quick step back. "Are you alright?"

For a moment, Will just took several deep breaths. He felt almost sick from the powers that had been, without him even needing to think about it, fighting back the powers of the Dark. He wasn't sure whether to be angry or not that Simon had broken the contact, but after a moment decided that he couldn't have known anyway, that he was only doing what he thought best. Finally, he smiled at Simon. "I'm fine. I'm sorry to worry you."

"What happened?"

"The man from the Dark contacted me."

"That... Mordred?" Simon asked, almost reluctantly. And then, as if glad for the interruption -- "Look! There's Barney. I wonder what he wants... I thought he was out painting something or other."

Will gave Simon a rather piercing look. Finally, he shook his head, looking away from Simon and down the hillside to where Barney was making his way up towards them, with no particular care for taking it slowly. "Perhaps he got lonely."

"Oh, no," Simon laughed. "Barney would spend _days_ alone with his paint and a landscape, if he were allowed to. I don't think he'd even stop for dinner."

"I would," Barney said, breathlessly, hearing the last just as he reached them. He grinned at them both. "I like dinner far too much to skip it, especially at the Trefeddian. Have you ever _tasted_ their apple pie, Will?"

Will laughed. "I haven't. My aunt Jen's apple pie is probably better."

"I'll have to try your aunt Jen's apple pie then," Barney said, seriously, once he'd got his breath back. He glanced sidelong at Simon and then looked up at Will. "I wanted to talk to you about the... the scrying. I want to try and control it. You said that the more I practice, the more control I'll have over it, right? Since it might help, I might as well try. So... how do I do it? What should I do? Where's Bran, anyway? And Jane?"

"I don't know about Bran and Jane," Will said, thoughtfully. "They might have gone for a walk together... or maybe Bran's just busy. He works on the farm, you know. As for the scrying... it's a pity we don't have the grail anymore. That would be the best way. I could help you control what you're seeing then."

"Like the Dark did, with the oil on the water?" Simon offered, and then bit his lip.

"Like that," he agreed. He stood for a moment in thought, his hands thrust into his pockets. Barney was struck all over again with the feeling that Will didn't quite _fit_ \-- not his body, not the landscape, not their company. There was something about him unsuited to his entirely _ordinary_ appearance. He almost jumped when Will spoke, his voice perfectly ordinary too, sounding soft and even thoughtful, but not as if the person owning it had any great power. "Oil on water in a bowl might work almost as well. It would be less focused, I think... I'm not sure. Come on. The men are all out on the farm and my aunt Jen has gone down to the market, so the house will be empty."

"Do I have to come?" Simon asked.

Will glanced at him, smiling sympathetically. "If you don't want to, don't. Nobody is forcing you to do anything, remember."

Barney looked at Simon too, then shrugged helplessly and started to rush in the direction of the house, not so far away over the field. Will laughed, and followed him.

Simon watched them go, hesitating, and then shook his head, turning to climb further up the hillside, as if to climb away from the whole thing. He glanced back only once, and saw Will pausing on the hillside below, turning to look back at him. It was too far away to see the expression on Will's face, but all the same Simon got the impression that it was troubled. Deliberately turning his back, he resumed his walk.

\---

"Careful -- don't spill it."

"I've got it," Barney said, huffing softly at Will. Carefully he set the bowl down on the table, looking down critically at the oil floating on the surface of the water. "I feel like a kid playing. There should be something more mystic about it... candles on the table or something."

Will shrugged. "If we went that far, it'd feel more like playing to me. I think you'd be best sitting down... perhaps we should put it on the floor instead, and then you can look into it comfortably while sitting down. It can be... a shock."

"It felt _awful_ yesterday. I was cold all over, so cold it ached..." Barney trailed off and then shook his head to clear it. "But I'm not afraid."

Will smiled. "I know you're not. Let's go in that room... if anyone comes back, they won't see us right away to ask what we're doing and we can pack it out of the way if necessary. Grab that pack of cards, would you?"

"We could use cards," Barney said, thoughtfully. "At least, people always say it's possible to read fortunes from cards."

"It is, but cards tend to be limited and you'd need a specially aligned pack, and a book to help you interpret the message." Will shrugged. "Most people who say these things don't understand what they're talking about, they just happen to be incidentally right. Or maybe the true tales have become distorted through the years, like so many stories. Anyway, cards are hardly even worthy of your power."

Barney wrinkled his nose. "Should I be flattered?"

Will laughed, carrying the bowl into the small room and setting it down on the floor. "Well, it's hardly usual in these days to have scrying power like yours. So you can feel flattered if you like."

"So... what do I do?"

Will gave him an awkward look. "Well, this is going to sound cheesy... but just look down at it, clear your mind... try to feel open to anything it wants to show you or tell you. Perhaps if you focus on a certain thing you want to know about -- just one single thing, and concentrate on that."

"Mordred," Barney said, immediately.

Will paused for a moment, and then nodded slowly. "Alright then. If anything starts to feel wrong, just look away from the bowl. As you're looking into the water, just focus on the way the oil looks, and then focus your eyes as if you're trying to look _through_ it... does that make sense?"

Barney nodded. He was already staring down at the bowl, crouched awkwardly beside it. After a moment he made an impatient noise and settled properly, leaning over it a little. He bit his lip hard. The oil made a pretty pattern on the water, moving gently because of his breath on it. For a minute he tried to hold his breath and then gave up, about to say that nothing was happening.

And then, like always, that was the moment something happened. Barney felt as if he was somehow tiny, falling into the bowl, swallowed up by it. He felt as if he could feel the oil cool and slick against his skin, and then the water... and then he _saw_.

The scene was oddly familiar and Barney realised it was Tywyn. Just plain old Tywyn -- nothing particularly interesting. The street was almost empty. It wasn't one of those close to the market, of course. After a minute, his ears popped and he could suddenly _hear_ \-- the way it feels when you go swimming and your ears are full of water and then _suddenly_ you can hear properly again. He could hear the market close by, and a familiar voice, laughing and chattering away.

"Jane?" he asked, turning to look. She didn't see him. She looked as if she were trying to impress someone: her long hair was down, fluttering around her shoulders, and she was smiling her most radiant smiles, the kind he and Simon had always thought reserved for sucking up to someone. And she was wearing a skirt again.

The young man with her... it gave Barney a chill to look at him, his skin bright-pale and his hair midnight black -- really, truly black, though, so not really like midnight at all. He was smiling. Barney thought he looked superior and condescending, in the way that Bran sometimes had. Then he realised that he was feeling jealous that Jane had gone off with someone rather than staying with him, without even confiding in him, and he told himself firmly to stop. The young man was really quite handsome, he thought. No wonder Jane liked him.

"The boy who was calling down to you yesterday... that was Simon?" the young man said. "Your older brother?"

"Yes. My younger brother is Barney. He fancies himself an artist these days."

Barney tried very hard not to resent that comment, telling himself that Jane was just showing off. At that moment, the dark-haired young man looked up and -- saw him. Barney was sure he didn't really, but it was as if their eyes met. He drew back automatically, and found himself slipping back through the water, back through the oil, and blinking open eyes he hadn't known he'd closed to find the day too bright despite the sunshine and brightness of the street in Tywyn he felt as if he'd just been standing in.

Will smiled at him. "What did you see?"

"It was just Tywyn," Barney said, with a feeling of anti-climax. "Today, I think. I saw Jane, and a boy with her. Well. Almost a grown up. Older than Simon. Probably that friend she mentioned yesterday. Jane was just having fun, and he was kind of nice looking... She probably fancies him."

"Umm," he said, thoughtfully.

"That's nothing to do with what I was trying to see, though. It was just... a normal day in Tywyn, and Jane happened to be there."

"A stray thought about Jane probably crossed your mind just at the right moment. Or at the wrong moment, depending on how you look at it," Will said, still looking thoughtful.

"Unless..." There was a long pause, and Barney took a deep breath. "Could that have been Mordred? The young man I saw, I mean."

"No. I would feel it, if such danger like that came near Jane. And Mordred wouldn't dare threaten one of the Six." Will frowned, and then shrugged it off. "I suppose we'd better just chalk it down to your inexperience. Don't worry, I didn't expect you to really see anything just for the wanting to, so soon."

He smiled, relieved. "That's good. I wonder whether she'll introduce us to him, later... If she does, I'm going to try to embarass her."

Will laughed. "From what you say, you wouldn't have to try very hard. She probably desperately wants to impress him."

\---

Bran heard them before he saw them. There was a dip in the hill on the way down to the Trefeddian and that's where he found them: Jane and the dark haired stranger, laughing and talking. There was something at the back of Bran's mind: a feeling of alarm, a vague warning, scraping at his consciousness. It had been there all day. He'd thought it was nothing, but as he looked at the face of Jane's friend, he felt it leap to life, and some strange part of him he wasn't used to yet wished he still had a sword. He cleared his throat and Jane looked up.

"Bran! We were going to come up and visit you in a bit, but we sat down for a rest and..." She trailed off and shrugged, patting the patch of grass beside her. "Join us? Oh, this is Michael. And Michael, this is Bran Davies. The boy I mentioned."

"Hello," Michael said, putting his hand out. Bran ignored it.

"Thought we were all going to meet up with Will today," he said, to Jane. "Didn't think you'd be sliding off with this guy."

"This guy has a _name_," Jane said, a note of warning in her voice. She looked at Michael, smiling. Bran's fists clenched tight at his side. He felt a skin crawling sensation he vaguely recalled... a mad man, and Will standing there, facing it out... the Dark, a presence almost tangible, something he could almost taste on the air... he shook his head slightly, pushing the thoughts away.

"Whatever," he said, as rudely as he could. He still didn't look at Michael. Jane, looking at them, thought they looked alike somehow. They were polar opposites, of course: Bran so pale he seemed almost translucent in the sunlight, and Michael's hair somehow darker than the darkest thing she could think of, a sheen of almost blue on it in the brightness. But there was something in both faces, something noble, something that reminded her of someone.

"I didn't know we were all meeting up today," she said, trying to placate Bran. She patted the grass next to her again. "Come on, sit down."

"I've better things to do," he said, shaking his head. For a moment, his eyes met Michael's, and Jane almost felt frightened at the intensity of their expressions -- Bran's almost puzzled, but hostile, and Michael's smoothly superior, somehow loathing. And then the moment was gone, and she thought she must have imagined it, because Michael was smiling.

He touched her arm, lightly. "Let him go," he said, and Bran wanted to hit him for the condescending note in his voice. "If he doesn't want to be civil..."

Bran straightened up, standing there tall and haughty, and anyone who had been told just then that he was the son of a king wouldn't doubt it. "I want a word with Jane a minute. Alone."

She hesitated. Michael shrugged. "Go on, I can wait here for you a minute."

Bran felt, again, the urge to hit him. He turned his back on him, even though at the back of his mind the warning of danger scraped at him again. He walked up the hillside, trying not to be aware of Jane rising to her feet, smiling ruefully at the stranger. He knew the look she'd be giving him. _Don't mind him_, it'd say. His da had worn it often enough, when he hadn't felt like playing nice with whoever was staring at him like he was some kind of freak.

He didn't stop until they were well out of earshot. Jane was a little out of breath, flushed pink and by that point, somewhat angry. "What's wrong with you, Bran? Just because you're _jealous_ \-- "

"Jealous of what?" he asked, hotly.

"Of _him_, because I was spending time with him!"

He shook his head. There was a hint of scorn in his voice. "If he's desperate enough to be chasing _little girls_, I just feel sorry for him."

Jane glared at him. "I'm not a little girl! You just don't like him. You don't like the idea of me having other friends, do you? You just want to keep me all for yourself!"

Bran laughed. It was the most derisive laugh he could come up with, and hearing it, Jane flushed even more. "Of course, that's what it's about. I can't be concerned for you, I can't just not like him -- it has to be jealousy."

"You don't have the right to tell me who to spend my time with," she said, obstinately. Their eyes met and they looked at each other for a long, long moment, and then Bran shrugged, shrugged it off, and turned away.

"True enough," he said, and walked off. Jane stood there watching him go for longer than she intended to, her eyes stinging a little, her hands in fists at her side. He didn't look back.


	3. Chapter 3

It was still early morning when Bran opened the door to find Barney there. He wasn't entirely surprised to see him, and it wasn't as if he'd been hauled out of bed to answer the door. He rose with his da, which was to say, with the dawn. He doubted even Barney, who looked like a morning person, had been up as long as him. "So, what is it you're wanting, Sais bach?" he asked, teasing a little. Eagerness was quite plain on Barney's face. "And where are your brother and sister?"

"Oh, Jane's going out with her beau, and Simon's studying or something." Barney wrinkled his nose. "Boring stuff, in other words."

Bran scowled a little. "You met Michael?"

"Well -- sort of." Barney shrugged. "That's sort of what I'm here about. Only sort of. Did Will tell you about my scrying?"

"I haven't spoken to him yet. Come on in, then. Looks like you've got a story you're bursting to tell."

Barney made a face at him. Bran politely didn't tell him that it made him look both younger and cuter than ever, and instead led him inside without further comment. There was tea made already, so he poured Barney a cup, and let him pick through the biscuit barrel for the nicest biscuits. Barney chattered about nothing all the while, and Bran marvelled at how much he _didn't mind_ when it came from Barney.

"So," Barney said, from around a mouthful of biscuit crumbs, when they sat together at the table in the kitchen. "I came to talk to you about my scrying."

Bran nodded. "It can wait until you've finished your biscuit. No rush, like."

There was a pause, while Barney washed his biscuit down with tea, nearly choking on crumbs in his hurry, despite Bran's words. Bran rolled his eyes, but didn't comment, just reached across and slapped Barney's back firmly until he stopped coughing. Barney grinned at him, unabashed. There was a bright, eager light in his eyes. "I asked Will to teach me how to, you know, control my scrying. It's not much use to us if it just happens randomly, right? So we got a bowl and filled it with water, and we poured oil on it. Like -- oh, right, you wouldn't know. Once, a man from the Dark made me scry -- "

"I know about it," Bran said. He stretched his legs out under the table, nodding for Barney to go on.

"Okay, so, we got the bowl and filled it with water and put oil on the surface, like the man from the Dark did, and we sat quiet for a bit. Will told me to... try to see through the oil or something. I thought it wasn't going to work..."

"Obviously, it did."

"Yeah, it did. I saw..." He paused for a moment, gathering his thoughts. Bran waited. Barney took a deep breath: when he spoke again his tone was almost dreamy, almost sing-song, in recollection. "I saw Tywyn. I think it was the same afternoon. I heard Jane laughing and talking to someone, and then she came up with someone older than Simon. Really pale skin, really dark hair. He looked... weird. Then it was like he looked up and saw me -- nobody else did, not even Jane -- and then it ended."

"And?"

"And I want to try again. Try to see more..."

"Why not ask Will?"

Barney hesitated a moment, lifting his eyes to Bran's face. He looked almost puzzled. "I'm not quite sure. I just feel... like it should be with you here, not him. Looking into it with me. Will just sat there opposite, didn't see with me, but I feel like you could... or that you could help me, anyway."

Bran stood up, taking his empty cup and going to wash it out. For a moment, there was silence in that small kitchen, but it wasn't a bad kind of silence. Barney sat there, waiting, and content to wait. And Bran thought about what he'd said. "Okay," he said, finally, putting the cup on the draining board, upside down. He turned round, leaning back against the counter, arms folded. Barney's eyes met his again, the same bright eagerness almost shining out of them. Bran wondered where he got so much energy from. "You need a bowl. Water, and oil."

"Yes."

"Let's see what I can do, then," Bran said, and smiled. Barney jumped up, like an excited puppy, and helped him look. It wasn't hard to find a decent sized bowl, plain white and pattern free, though Barney wasn't sure whether that was important or not. It didn't take them long, once they had the bowl, to set it up on the kitchen table.

"Da shouldn't be home until evening, he's visiting someone," Bran said.

"It's funny how things happen like that," Barney said, absently, already seated and looking down at the bowl.

"Like what?"

"Convenient. It always happened around Gumerry. And Will, too, I suppose."

"That's the way they are, I think," Bran said. He shook his head, moving to stand behind Barney's chair. "Do you want me to do something? Hold your hand? Look into it with you? Anything?"

"Just... be quiet," Barney said, not rudely, but absently. Bran cast a brief look at him and saw his eyes were already unfocused, dreamy. "Just be quiet, and stand there."

Bran stood still, as Barney said, and stayed quiet. He had his hand on the back of Barney's chair, and he was looking at the back of Barney's head -- unless he twisted and stooped a little to look at the bowl, or craned to see Barney's face. He noticed how pale the blond of Barney's hair was, noticed chips in the white paint on the kitchen chairs. He could hear a faint buzzing from outside, and realised he could hear the humming of bees in flight. He felt as if his senses were expanding, pushing outward. First he could just hear the hum of the bees, and then the baa of sheep, though there were none of the stupid woolly creatures close at that time of year. And then the hum of a car's motor, driving up the path, but much lower down or much higher up. He thought he heard John whistling to his dogs, and for a moment, thought he could hear his da's voice, but younger -- calling out his mother's name, desperate and lonely.

The bitterness of that thought took him back to the present, unsure if he'd really heard anything. He didn't know how long he'd been standing there, but nothing seemed to have changed; Barney hadn't moved. Cautiously, he moved his hand from the back of the chair to Barney's shoulder. He was about to speak when Barney stirred.

"Two gifts," Barney said, in a thick, deep voice that seemed to come from somewhere deep inside the earth. Bran froze, listening, clutching Barney's shoulder tighter. "One from the bards, and one from the king."

"From my father?"

Barney continued as if he hadn't heard, as if the thing that borrowed his voice couldn't also hear through him. "From the bards, the true tales, the warnings that are forgotten. From the king, a sword, greater than the first. The birthright of Bran, son of Arthur, lies hidden..."

"Excalibur," someone said, from the door, and Bran let go of Barney's shoulder and whipped round to see Will standing there, with John Rowlands behind him.

"How long...?"

"We came as soon as possible," John said, while Will moved over to Barney, touching his shoulder as Bran had done. "Will thought... he felt danger in the use of power."

John said the words awkwardly, Bran noticed, still troubled by the idea of powers beyond that that he'd learnt of in church since he was a boy. Bran smiled at him and then turned to Barney, who looked very, very pale, but like himself again. Bran knew that whatever the voice was, it had gone.

"I was looking for a sword for Bran," Barney said, weakly, to Will. Will smiled at him.

"And it was well done. Excalibur, King Arthur's sword, remains in this world. We only need to find it."

"And the warnings from the bards?" John asked.

"Gwion," Bran said. Will looked at him, and their eyes met, and they smiled at each other.

"I think so, yes. I think... Barney, do you remember what I said yesterday, about the true tales being distorted? I think that... the stories about Mordred going against Arthur aren't true, not in that sense, but in a symbolic sense. Mordred never fought Arthur. He'll fight Arthur's son. His brother. The stories give us the origin of Mordred, warn us against him, but he wasn't there when the Dark fought the Light..."

"Like the Bible," John said, unexpectedly. "We know some of the stories cannot be true, yet they express a truth."

Will smiled again. "Exactly."

"What about Excalibur, then?" Barney asked. There was already a little more colour in his face, and in any case, his eyes were brightly curious again. "I saw it -- where it's hidden. I don't know how to explain it... but it's near, we can find it, it's the right time to find it..."

"This is my quest," Bran said, quietly, thoughtfully. "My birthright."

"No," Will said, equally quietly, "I don't think so."

"It feels," John said, slowly, glancing at Bran almost warily, "as if this is my task. It... calls to me."

"Perhaps it is," Will said, thoughtfully, before Bran could say anything. "But things will happen as they happen. Let it be for now. If it is the right time, something will happen, something will lead us to it. That's the way of things."

\---

"You won't... mind, if it turns out to be my task after all?"

Bran looked up at John, pausing on the path, tilting his head to one side. There was a scowl somewhere, like a threatening stormcloud, but he didn't let it loose. "I suppose, if it's the way of things, I'll have to forgive," he said, letting his tone lighten a little. John smiled in relief.

"I'm glad for that. I wouldn't want you to be angry."

"I wouldn't be angry," Bran said, quietly. "I just... I want to prove myself. It's been a long time since I fought the Dark. I want to show Will that I can still... I want to show him that returning my memories wasn't a mistake. I want to be useful to him, like Barney is. Did you see the way he smiled at Barney...? The way he said it was well done? I want..."

John looked at Bran for a long moment, as if measuring him up. Under the scrutiny, Bran lifted his head, straightened up. John found he had to smile. "When you stand like that, I certainly believe you're a prince," he said.

"That doesn't mean I'm worthy of the task, though."

John sighed. He turned and walked over to a low stone wall, sitting down on it. After a moment's hesitation, Bran followed. They sat together on the wall, not saying anything for a while. Bran let that be, knowing that if John had something to say, he would say it; and in any case he remembered the solemn, not uncomfortable silence, from other times when John had wanted to say something. He tipped his head back to look up at the sky: still clear, the blue bright, but with clouds coming, scudding along on the quick wind.

"I think," John said, slowly, "that if you were not worthy of the task, Will would already know. He would never have... we wouldn't have had the dream. He knows we're the right people, even if he doesn't know how things will go... And I think there will be a task for each of us, one we are _meant_ to complete. It may not be easy, but we all have a part. It seems to us, now, that Barney has a greater part. But perhaps his part is only for now, and it will be him feeling useless at the end."

"I suppose... It was that way the last time. Each of us had... a trial. Will and I went to the Lost Land, Jane had to stand up to the afanc..."

John reached up and put his hand on Bran's shoulder, gripping tightly. "Then your task will come soon enough."

"Still... Excalibur was my father's sword," Bran said, and there was a fierceness in his strange eyes. "It should be my task to find it."

"Perhaps there's a reason," John said, gently. For a moment he sounded almost like Will often did: knowing so much more, and being patient with those who didn't know. Bran sighed, getting to his feet again.

"Maybe there is, but I don't have to like it, do I?"

"I suppose not," John said, smiling. He hesitated, plainly on the verge of saying something more. Bran waited a moment, watching him.

"Something else you want to say?"

"Yes. Your father... Owen loves you. If anything were to happen to you, he would be distraught. I think he only stopped searching for your mother because he had you to take care of. And he has never stopped grieving. If something happened to you, he would -- "

"I know," Bran said, interrupting him. "And if Owen has to hurt for the good of the Light, Will has to let him hurt, doesn't he?"

"Yes. That... Do not trust too much in the Light, bach. It is good, but it... do not think of it as the sun's light, though there's that in it too. It's the moon's light that Will represents. Cold and clear, near and yet far away."

Bran smiled, just a little. "You're becoming a poet, John Rowlands."

"I'm telling you to be careful, is all."

"I will be careful," he said, sighing softly. He raised his eyes to look John in the face, smiling at him again. "For you, as well as for Da. You... you're like a second father to me."

John didn't say anything, just looked at Bran; there was tenderness in that look, and pain, and perhaps regret. Bran started to walk away, and then turned back and quickly embraced John, squeezing tightly. And then he walked away faster than before, and before John could regain his wits enough to say something, was gone.

\---

Bran was still walking fast when he bumped into Simon. The clouds were coming over fast, heaping up over their portion of the sky, and the sheep in the field nearby were huddled together as if in fear of something. Simon was walking slowly, thoughtful, but apparently untroubled. Bran felt suddenly angry at his ambivalence about the whole thing; Will had warned him, but --

But Simon should know better than to disbelieve. Bran hadn't liked him _best_, but he'd liked him well enough, and now -- he thought this was below the Simon Drew he knew. Perhaps it was that which put the contempt into his voice. "Why haven't we seen you yet today, Sais bach? Your little brother has been doing something constructive, but we've seen nothing of you or Jane."

"What's Barney been doing?" Simon asked, frowning.

"You'd know, if you'd been there," Bran said. "He's proving himself a lot more useful than you, isn't he?"

Simon just shrugged. "I'm saving my energy for serious things."

Bran's voice was oddly quiet -- not a calm quiet, but more like the air around them: charged with tension; it was the calm before the storm. "Serious things? The Dark may rise up to take our world, and you have more serious things to do? Or do you think it's child's play we're at, Simon Drew? Don't you remember Merriman? Did you not stand in the dream with the rest of us and remember those things?" He grabbed Simon's shoulders, staring into his face. His voice rose, as if he was trying to break through -- break in -- make Simon hear him. "Do you think this is just a game? It isn't, Simon! This is -- this is the most important thing in the world. In all of time!"

Simon didn't move. "Wasn't that your supposed heroism? Slicing the blossom from the tree?"

"That was the start. This... that wasn't the _end_. It was the beginning! Will can't do anything, he just has to guide us -- " and as he said that, Bran realised how true it was, and fell silent for a moment. He took his hands from Simon's shoulders, voice soft again. "This is... the age of men. This is _our_ time -- that's why Merriman went. Simon, we have to -- "

"I'm tired of this," Simon said, suddenly, forcing Bran to break off again. "I'm tired of all of it! We were kids, and we thought we were saving the world. But we're not kids anymore!"

"One of us is," Bran said, sneering.

"Better a child than delusional."

Bran laughed. "Then your little brother is the most delusional of the lot of us, Sais bach."

"You think I don't know that? I'm _worried_ about him. That's the only reason I was coming up to join you!"

It seemed to be getting by the minute, Bran thought, and glancing up saw that the great humps and drifts of clouds _had_ darkened. He looked back at Simon. "The storm's coming, Simon," he said, quietly. "And whether you believe in it or not, you'll be caught in it. Maybe you'll die. Maybe I'll die. Maybe your little brother will die. Will you call it delusion then?"

"You're all mad," Simon said, stubbornly. "Barney's perfectly safe, unless Will does something to him. I swear that Will must be -- "

Bran hit him. He didn't think, just hit him. His voice was dead quiet again, and dangerous, like the coming storm. "Get out of here, Drew. Just get out of my sight. You don't deserve Will's trust, you never deserved any of it. Merriman would be ashamed of his 'great nephew'. You never deserved to be one of the Six if you can say such things about Will. Now leave."

Simon stared at him. His lip had split from the blow, and as he stood there, the blood trickled a little, down over his chin. As if snapping back into awareness, he drew the back of his hand over his mouth, looking down at the red smear as if in shock. Then he looked up at Bran, looked up at his angry face, and turned to go -- almost fled. Bran stood there watching him, fists still clenched, not even understanding why he'd hit Simon. It had... it had made sense.

His fists clenched tighter, but the anger had already gone from his face. He looked as if there was a bad taste in his mouth -- as if he felt sick.


	4. Chapter 4

Barney didn't see John approaching. He was lost in drawing: almost frowning in concentration as he held his sketchbook in place. He had it awkwardly balanced on his knee while he drew with the other hand. For a moment, John just watched him; then, rather than leaning over him to look at it, potentially getting in the way of the light, he moved to sit beside him and wait. Barney looked up then, though, his eyes dancing. "Mister Rowlands! Hi. I didn't see you come up."

"P'nawn da, Barney," John said, smiling. "But you can call me John, as Bran does."

Barney liked the way John Rowlands smiled: his whole face came to life, his eyes smiling too, little crinkles showing around them. He grinned back. "That means good afternoon, right, Mi -- John?"

John nodded. "Right, indeed."

"It _is_ a good afternoon, even after last night's storm," Barney said, happily. "I mean, sometimes people say good afternoon and really, it's miserable. But it's nice today. The sun's up, the ground isn't even wet, there's not a cloud in the sky.... It's like last night was just a dream."

"More like a nightmare," John said, smiling again. "It was a wild night."

"Kind of scary," Barney agreed. He looked down at his sketch book, frowning to himself. After a moment he began to add some more detail. John watched, intrigued by his intense concentration. It reminded him somewhat of the way Barney had looked the day before, as he and Will listened from the doorway -- as if he communed with someone else and let them use his hands in the same way that the other voice had come through him.

"What are you drawing?"

Barney took a moment to answer; it almost seemed as if he had to make a conscious effort to look away from the sketch. But his smile was normal enough, the cheerful grin he'd shown just moments before. "I'm trying to sketch what I saw yesterday, when I scryed for a sword for Bran. It's hard, because... I can see the place clearly in my mind's eye, but it doesn't... it..." He shook his head, waving a hand around vaguely. "It's hard to explain. It... I couldn't put it into words, and it seems I can't sketch it easily, either."

"Will you be finished soon?"

Barney glanced at it again, as if expected the lines on the page to have gone somewhere while his back was turned. Then he nodded, looking up. "Yeah, it won't take long at all now."

"I'd like to see it, when you're happy with it."

"Not now?"

"I've time to wait, and no artist likes to show half finished things."

Barney laughed, bending his head to return to his work. He sounded a little absent-minded, but again, as cheerful as ever. "That's true. I _hate_ it when Jane gets impatient to see what I'm doing and just snatches my sketch book. She's always so impatient about it when I just want to sit and work on the details. Are you an artist at all, then?"

"Not quite. I play the harp, and..." John shrugged. If Barney had looked up, he might have seen the hint of a self-conscious flush on the Welshman's face. "I string songs together, now and again. And I don't like it when someone's too impatient to hear."

"I'd like to hear you play something sometime. You taught Bran, didn't you?"

"Have you heard him play?"

Barney looked up again, laughing a little. "Oh yes. I think he's brilliant, but I'm no judge. Everybody winces when I so much as touch an instrument... and they say I can't carry a tune in a bucket. There, I think I'm done with this. It doesn't look quite right to me, but... it probably never will. Sometimes that happens, with drawing, even when everyone else thinks it's wonderful. Here, have a look."

He held the sketchbook out and John took it. The minute his eyes fell on it he thought something about the scene was familiar: it was just rocks, and grass, and an area behind a thick bush where sheep might huddle and hide... there were plenty such places in the Welsh hills. Yet something about it struck deeper than that, as if he'd actually been there -- sat on _that_ rock, squeezed past _that_ bush. Barney was watching him, when he looked up.

"Do you recognise it?" he asked, quietly. His expression was suddenly serious. "I had a feeling that I should show it to you... that you'd know what to do about my vision. And you felt it was your task, didn't you?"

John looked at the drawing again. "Can I keep it?"

There might have been disappointment in Barney's eyes. In any case, he took the sketchbook back and carefully ripped out the page. John folded it in silence and slipped it into his pocket.

"Thank you."

"You're welcome," Barney said, with a smile and a shrug, and settled again with his sketchbook and pencil. John stood up, stretching his legs for a moment and then turning. He didn't walk to get tools, and nor did he call his dogs as if he were going to work. Barney looked up from drawing after a moment, and grinned to himself as he saw John halfway up the hillside. "Good luck. I wish I could go with you," he said, softly, and then turned back to his sketching again.

\---

John _had_ been up to the place before. He remembered it better when he looked at the picture again: remembered a summer evening spent looking for sheep that had strayed. He'd found more than one up there before. Part of him wanted to laugh at the idea of finding this thing there -- a _sword_ where he'd found only sheep before?

A chill crept into him. He shook his head, shaking the thoughts away, and focusing only on the certainty that had come to him when he looked at the sketch -- bone deep, _soul_ deep. "Ac nac arwain ni i brofedigaeth, eithr gwared ni rhag drwg," he said, aloud, but quietly. And then he began to move up the slope, keeping the words in mind. _Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil_. He felt it, the oppression of the Dark; a chill, a heaviness, something pressing down on his mind and making him breathless and tired on a path that should have been a pleasant walk to take up five minutes.

He whispered the prayer again, trying to believe that it made a difference. If he faltered for a moment -- if he paused --

John lifted his head, thinking of Bran: so arrogant and yet so vulnerable. He thought of the sword, of Barney's sketch, and _only_ of those things, ignoring the whispers, the warnings, the voices that told him to turn back.

And then he heard her.

It was Blodwen's voice. He knew that immediately, and without thought he was running, hurrying up the uneven path to where he thought her voice was coming from. And there she stood, just beside the path, and her face was full of warmth and teasing laughter. She called his name and he went toward her -- and then stopped, just as suddenly as he'd started to run.

"You're dead," he said to her, even though she was solid and real and didn't look like a ghost. She shook her head, reaching her hands towards him, and he turned his face away. "You're dead, and driven away, and you never really were."

"I was alive," she said, though a hard edge had entered the soft voice he remembered. "I was alive, and I lived and breathed, and I swore to you -- "

"All your promises were nothing but empty air, Blodwen," he said, heavy with regret.

"Cariad..."

He looked at her again. He tried to feel angry, tried to welcome the feelings of betrayal and bitterness back into his heart. And yes, he felt regret, and yes, he wished she were real, but the strength of it had all gone. He looked at her and couldn't forget the darkness, the twisted soul behind a face that had always looked beautiful to him. He shook his head even as she stepped toward him, her hands reaching out again as if in longing.

"John, cariad... We were happy. Don't you remember? If you turn back, and forget this stupid quest, and just wait a while... I'll be back. I swear that to you. You can have your Blodwen again, we can be happy again... God knows that I never wanted this... Just turn back, just give me time..."

"You're not real," he said, firmly. "God knows nothing of you, and you're gone from the world, and I am glad. You never were the woman that I loved. I loved a lie."

"You're strong, John Rowlands," the apparition said, and now there was no semblance of warmth in that voice. "Strong, and stubborn, and stupid."

"Perhaps I am that," he said, mildly. "But at least I'm not evil. Bran Davies needs something from me, and I'll do that thing if it takes my life, so you don't deter me -- whatever you are. I don't think you're anything but a lie, really. A memory."

Then John Rowlands started to walk away, up the path. He didn't turn, didn't look back, just kept on walking, more sure than ever that this was his task, and that was his test, and at the end lay what Bran needed. Behind him, the image stood for a moment; and then without even a scream of defeat, it vanished.

\---

The summer he'd first seen that place, there hadn't been a cave. He was sure of that. And Barney's sketch hadn't shown him a cave, either -- and yet there it was, a dark and stony entrance, like a wound in the side of the hill. John stood before it, waiting, listening; though he wasn't sure what he was waiting or listening _for_. A tingle of warning still lurked at the base of his spine and his ears seemed to ring with the power in the air. And there was a trace of music in the air, too: faint, so faint, but somehow beckoning.

"Won't do any good standing around out here," he muttered to himself. He hesitated a moment and then stepped forward. He tried to be as sure, as steady, as he would be if he was still that young man looking for lost sheep. For a moment, darkness surrounded him, cool and almost tangible, like something slick against his skin. And then light surrounded him again -- the flickering, wavering light of torches, torches that made shadows dance in the huge cave that shouldn't, by rights, exist.

In the center of the cave, a woman stood, a sword in her hands, her eyes closed. The sword was in a sheath, attached to a sword belt, and the woman stood so straight and so still as she held it that she might have been a statue. Even her face might have been carved from smooth, featureless stone. John paused, suddenly breathless, his heart hammering.

"Didn't think I'd be seeing you again," he said, after a long, long silence; his own voice sounded harsh in his ears. It echoed around that cavern that surely, surely, couldn't be so large.

Guinevere opened her eyes. "Do you hate me, John Rowlands?" she asked, softly. He looked at her for a moment, trying to judge what he should answer. He noted as he did the way she was dressed: she wore a gown, but it was a simple one, blue like her eyes. He didn't feel like he was in the presence of a queen. He felt he was in the presence of an ordinary human: a sad one, who had sinned, and who was perhaps doing her penance.

"I don't know why you left them. Owen Davies is a good man, and Bran... he's a good lad, but he could've done with a mother," he said, and he shrugged, and tried to keep his voice free of the taint of accusation. "But no, I don't hate you. The only ones that have a right to do that, I'm thinking, are Arthur, Owen and Bran."

She sounded wistful. "Would Bran forgive me?"

"As I said, he's a good lad. I think he would. Though, may I ask... why was this quest mine, and not Bran's? Surely the boy deserves to see his mother... Or Owen would have done it. He loves the boy as if he were his own. And he's... well, he's as good a man as any."

"Bran deserves to see me, but perhaps I don't deserve to see him," Guinevere said, simply. "And Owen... seeing me would not be good for him. Bran, perhaps, would understand why I had to go. But Owen would not."

"He loves you still."

Guinevere's smile was sad again. "I know."

There was no noise, no sound of movement at the entrance, and yet suddenly John was seized with a strong feeling that they were being watched. Guinevere gave nothing away, her blue eyes calm and still sad. Slowly, John turned to the entrance, where a person stood. The light from outside didn't seem to touch him, and his face was in shadow -- John could see nothing of him but the fact that he was there.

"I've already been tested," he said, suspiciously, and the figure laughed. It was a male voice -- not Blodwen, then, John thought, and was alarmed to note that he didn't feel anything one way or the other.

"Perhaps I simply wanted to see the man who resisted the Dark's wiles so well."

"I don't wish to see you," John said, shortly.

Another laugh: this time a mocking one. "Of course not." There was a pause, and the man took a step forward. John somehow knew that the gaze had shifted from him to the woman standing behind him. "Lady Guinevere," the voice said, more mocking than ever. "What a lovely flower you still are, after all these years."

"Mordred," she said, and there was an edge of steel in her words that John didn't find surprising.

"Still can't forgive me, can you?"

"It's not your fault whose bed you were conceived in, or under what circumstances. What matters is what you do with your life."

"So noble," the voice said, mocking again. "So who do you blame, Guinevere? My mother? Your precious husband? My father betrayed you, you know. Under the influence of one tiny charm, he gave in..."

"Arthur did no such thing," Guinevere said, but she was flushing with pride and anger. She lifted her head, her chin stuck out a little, and John realised with a little jolt of surprise that Bran himself had exactly that expression when things weren't going his way. "He was a mortal man. He couldn't be blamed for falling into a tangle of sorcery such as your mother always favoured. And he betrayed me less than I betrayed him."

Mordred didn't seem to have an answer to that. He turned to John again. "Aren't you going to ask for the sword you came to take?"

"If that's what you want me to do, maybe I should be wary of doing so."

Somehow, John knew that the man in the doorway, untouched as he was by both daylight and the flickering light of the torches, was smiling. "Or perhaps in turn that's what I want you to think. An awkward situation, I think. And here, there's no dewin to help you make a decision, is there?"

John looked over his shoulder at Guinevere. She didn't move, though the sword in her hands must have been heavy.

Catching his glance, Mordred shook his head. "Oh, she can't help you, either. Nor can I harm her, though. There are still rules, even in this day and age when only one set of players is meant to exist. She's keeping a relic safe -- why should I care?"

"You're here. Suggests that you do care, to me."

Flash of a smile in the dark again. "I'm not interested in the relic. I have one to match it. It's you I'm interested in. One of the Six, these days, but before you didn't quite make the cut, did you?"

"I've never minded making up the numbers."

"Not even when you were a child and you were always picked last?"

"Not even then."

The man laughed again. "Such a good, steadfast, sensible Welshman, aren't you?" he said, but humour had gone from his voice and it sounded like an insult. "The perfect piece for the dewin to play with."

"I chose to come here of my own accord," John said, mildly. "Will's a good lad, even if he's not quite _just_ a lad. He does what he has to, it's true. But he's not using us as pawns. Had we said no..."

"Had you said no, he would have been very surprised," the man said. "He made his moves to make you think -- "

"John?"

For a moment, the tableau held. And then the shadowy figure that was Mordred disappeared and through the entrance came Owen Davies, his face lit by the torches, his expression confused. Behind John, Guinevere took a sharp breath and he heard the clink of the sword belt's buckle as she wavered and the sword nearly fell from her hands. He turned to her quickly, holding his hands out. "I think it's time for you to give me that," he said, quietly, ignoring Owen. Guinevere took a moment to tear her eyes away, but then she looked him full in the face and nodded.

"Take this to my son," she said, and put the sword into his hands. For a moment, her hands touched his. They felt cold. "Tell him -- tell him I'm proud of him. Tell him I love him. That I wish I'd been there for him."

"I will."

She smiled, then, as if a weight had been lifted. "You're a good man, John Rowlands."

John took a step back, glancing over his shoulder for Owen. The man stood there as if transfixed, staring at Guinevere. When he finally spoke, his voice was thick with emotion. "Gwen..."

"I'm sorry, Owen," she said, quietly. John saw that she was trembling: perhaps not enough for Owen to see, but visibly all the same. "I'm so sorry."

"I did my best to raise him."

"And you did well."

"I still -- "

"Please," she said, looking at the ground. Her dark hair fell about her face. "Don't. I never deserved it. I never -- you shouldn't have -- "

"Every human being that loves another loves imperfection," Owen said, quietly. He took a few steps toward her, and John stepped back to give them some semblance of privacy, remembering when the dewin had said such words to him. They had seemed nothing then, words thrown into the face of grief, but then they struck deep, struck him silent. Owen took Guinevere's hands in his. "I never had any illusions about that. I... I just loved you, and always will. You can trust that promise."

"Owen," she said, and John looked away as she leaned up and kissed Owen as sweetly and fiercely as she could. "Thank you," she said, when she pulled back. "Thank you, Owen."

There was another moment of silence, while John looked at the floor and Owen looked at Guinevere and Guinevere looked at him. And then Owen drew away, and when he spoke his voice gruff with emotion, and somehow so normal that it made the cave seem entirely unreal again, despite the sword that was heavy in his hands. "You'll be going again, of course."

"Yes," Guinevere said softly, drawing away from him. She stepped backwards, rather than take her eyes from him. "I can finally rest, now. Take care of Bran -- take care of our son."

"You didn't even need to ask that," Owen said, strangely tender, and then he turned to John. "Let's go, John. You have to give that thing to Bran, don't you?"

Owen was the one to lead the way out, and John was the one who cast a look back. Guinevere watched them go, although around her, the torches were all flickering and dying, and the great cavern filled up with darkness until it seemed she should be swallowed in it. John hurried to catch up with Owen, knowing that if he looked back again, the cave would be gone.

"Bran's in danger, isn't he?" Owen asked.

"Yes."

"If any harm comes to him, I'll -- "

"I'll make sure no harm does come to him," John promised, though something in him wanted to laugh at the idea. It was more likely, he thought, that Bran would be saving _him_.


	5. Chapter 5

Will didn't think the sword had left Bran's hand since John had handed it over to him. He didn't seem to know what to do with it -- and how could he have known? -- and yet there was an ease in the way he held it, as if the sword itself remembered how to be wielded. When Bran tried to swing with it, there were echoes of a skill he couldn't have known.

"Pity there isn't time for lessons with that thing," he said, teasingly, still watching.

Bran plopped down beside him after a moment longer, carefully sheathing the sword and holding it in his lap. His fingers traced the patterns on the sheath. "I feel as if I could fight with this," he said, slowly. "But half of me feels ridiculous about it."

Will laughed. "I'm not surprised. If you were in your father's time, you'd have been taught to wield a sword as soon as you were strong enough to hold it up, but as it is..."

"As it is, I'm pretty useless." Bran started to laugh; his face was alight, noble and beautiful and unearthly. Will wondered how anybody could miss who and what he was. "Unless you need someone hitting over the head with it."

"I think you'll be alright."

Bran smirked just a little, but he was quickly overcome again by the gravity of the situation. His fingers never stopped their restless tracing of the designs on the sheath. "Was this really my father's sword?"

Will reached out to touch it, too, fingers finding a particular design: a circle, quartered by a cross. Bran's fingers brushed his as he reached to trace the symbol for himself. "Yes," Will said, after a moment. "Excalibur. Caledfwlch, in Welsh. There are two main stories about the origins of this sword. I... Barney probably knows more about the legends than I do, you know."

Bran rolled his eyes. "I'm not asking Barney, though. I'm asking you."

"So you are," Will said, and smiled a little.

"Go on," Bran said, softly. "I'm listening."

"Alright, but... I'm not saying any of this is true, or accurate. Maybe they're all just stories," Will said, warningly. Bran rolled his eyes as if to say _yes, I know_. "Arthur's father was a king. Uther Pendragon. Uther loved a woman called Igraine, and Merlin said that he would help Uther win Igraine, in exchange for their first born son. And that was Arthur. He went to a different family to be fostered, but when he was just coming of age, Uther died, and there was no king. That was when the sword in the stone appeared. The words might have been written on the stone, or perhaps Merlin was there and he said them... but it said that the man who could draw the sword would be the king."

"And my father drew the sword from the stone? This sword?" Bran asked. His golden eyes were on Will's face, as if he was hanging onto his every word.

Will nodded. "Yes, Arthur drew the sword from the stone. There are stories about it being an accident... but however it happened, it happened, and your father became king. In the other story, though, he gets Caledfwlch from the Lady of the Lake."

"The Lady? Your Lady?"

He looked almost startled at that thought. "Maybe. I don't really know... Anyway, Merlin took him to the lake and he was given the sword, but with the condition that one day, he would have to give it back. There's a story that says when he lay dying after a great battle, he ordered one of his knights to take the sword back to the lake and throw it in. When the knight finally did so, as he threw it a hand rose from the water and caught it."

"That didn't happen, though. I mean, Arthur didn't die."

Will looked at the sword in Bran's lap again and laughed. "The sword certainly doesn't look as if it's been at the bottom of a lake, either. But perhaps Arthur did give it back to the Lady, and perhaps the Lady gave it into Guinevere's charge, knowing that you might have need of it and that you gave Eirias to your father... and perhaps the mortal half of Arthur _did_ die. That's the lot of all mortals, you know."

"Truth in old stories again, then," Bran said, thoughtfully.

"There's another story that might be true..." Will bit his lip. "Arthur was supposed to have another sword, too, a twin to Caledfwlch. It was called Calent. Mordred stole it -- in fact, it was the sword Mordred killed Arthur with, in some of the stories."

"But Arthur isn't dead. Well, not properly, anyway."

"Perhaps that's another warning, then."

Bran tugged up a tuft of grass, looking at it with an expression of disgust that Will suspected had nothing to do with the tuft of grass itself. "So what does it mean? That we should be afraid of Calent?"

Will shook his head. "It means that Mordred may kill _you_, I think. It's a warning that there's no guarantee you'll come safe through this."

"I never thought there was."

"There's something comforting, though, too..." Will touched the sword again as he spoke. "The scabbard was said to have magical properties -- to be a protection to the one who wore it. The fact that Barney's vision led him to it might mean that's true."

"But, look -- surely all these stories can't come from Gwion? Or even from the Light... It just... it doesn't make sense."

"There have been many mortal men who served the Light... many, many mortal men. Men like yourself, and Arthur, and Gwion and Gwyddno, and the Drews... There have been such men in every age, and men who served never knowing the greater cause..." Bran looked up quickly and caught the look on Will's face; a look that was distant and lonely, that made Bran slip his hand into Will's just to say _you're not alone: I'm here_. He looked like Stonehenge, Bran thought: strange and ancient and remote. He found there was a lump in his throat just looking at him like that. And then Will squeezed his hand and laughed and the world slipped back into place again. "Speaking of the Drews, I'm surprised none of them have come to see the sword."

Bran shrugged, and it was his turn to withdraw, pulling his hand from Will's and standing up. "Jane's more interested in spending time with that man she met, Barney's already seen the sword in his vision, and Simon... I had a fight with Simon."

"A fight?"

"Split his lip," Bran admitted, a little sheepishly. And then, more seriously: "I think the Dark is working at me, making me... I shouldn't have hit Simon, I knew it even when I did. They want me to drive everyone away..."

"You'll have to do better than this to get rid of me," Will said, grinning a little. Then he sobered up again, standing up, and once again the world seemed skewed because Will was no longer a boy but now fully an Old One, with experience and knowledge seventeen years of life couldn't hold. He took Bran's hands. "I'll always be at your side, no matter what the Dark influences you to do."

"My dewin," Bran said, teasing a little. "The Merlin to my Arthur."

Will didn't smile. "Yes," he said, and made it a solemn promise, his eyes fixed on Bran's. "You have my fealty."

"Will -- "

"Well, well, well," another voice said. Both of them suddenly pulled apart, and Bran's hand moved almost by instinct to the hilt of his sword. Will stepped a little in front of Bran, as if to protect him.

"Mordred," he said, coldly.

"Will," Bran said, in his ear, and suddenly he was gripping his upper arm tightly. "Will, that's Michael. The one Jane was hanging around with."

He felt Will stiffen and draw himself up in anger. "You have taken one of the Six?"

"I have," Mordred said, and there was a note of gloating in his voice. He smirked at Will. "Not so well protected by your old charms and tricks now, are you? Perhaps it's because you're not the dewin your master was..."

"It's because magic has no place in this world," Will said, and if Bran hadn't seen the stiffness of his back and the way his fists clenched at his sides, he would have thought he was perfectly calm. "Not anymore. Not my magic, and certainly not yours. If it did, you wouldn't have had to spend so long getting Jane accustomed to you enough to trick her. You could have just plucked her up the moment you thought of it."

Mordred's expression didn't change. "Yes, well, about that. I'm sorry to interrupt your touching little scene, but I have one of your friends," his eyes slipped past Will and rested on Bran, "_brother_. You'd be advised to come and get her before harm comes to her. She's such a pretty little thing. It'd be a shame if I had to kill her."

"Don't you dare touch her!"

"We'll be there," Will said, more calmly. He grabbed Bran as he made to move past him. "Bran, leave it. That's not the real Mordred, it's just... it's a sending. Cutting it would do as much good as cutting empty air."

"It might make me feel better," Bran muttered, but he stopped and settled for glaring at Mordred.

"I'll see you soon, little brother," the sending said, amused again. And then it vanished.

"How come he can do that?" Bran demanded, immediately. Will sighed deeply, slowly sitting down.

"Arthur had some command over the powers of the world. Mordred is his son, and moreover the son of a witch, and so he has powers... It's another of the things you would have been taught to control if you had been brought up in your father's care instead of being brought to this time. You could still match Mordred, if you were taught to use them, if we had time..."

"We don't have time. That bastard has Jane!"

"I know," Will said, gently. "We have a little time, though. We have to wait for the others."

\---

"Jane?" Barney knocked on the door and then stuck his head through into her room. "Jane, you lazy thing, you should be up by now..." And then he almost swallowed his words, because there was no one in the bed, and no one in the room at all. She'd left the room neat enough -- there was her nightie on the pillow, and she'd drawn the curtains, but her outdoor shoes were gone.

"Has she gone out again?" Simon asked, coming to stand at his side. "I guess she's above hanging round with her brothers these days."

Barney didn't say anything. He felt as if his chest had constricted, a vague and formless fear nagging at him, strong enough to make his heart thud like a frantic drum beat in his chest.

There was no bowl, no water, no oil, but Barney tried to see anyway, straining his eyes, trying to see beyond the world as he'd seen beyond the oil. Past the patterns of rose-print curtains, past the curls of colour on the carpet, past the dancing gleams of light, past the shadows on the floor...

He couldn't see, but he _felt_: Jane was frightened. No -- she should have been frightened, but she wasn't. It was all dampened, tamped down, though it threatened to well up inside her and choke her. He knew that someone was holding her hand, speaking to her in a tone that might have been soothing, but the words made the terror inside her swirl, sickening and dizzy. Or perhaps it was the other way round: the words were soothing, but the voice frightened her. He skimmed over a mind that made him recoil at the darkness it contained, which thrust his questing mind away as soon as it noticed him.

And he reached further, away from that mind, to something alien and strange, something that was too large for him to understand. _Will_, he realised, and knew only that Will was angry, and perhaps a little frightened.

"Barney?" Simon said, quietly. He put a hand on his shoulder, squeezing tightly, and Barney felt himself going back, sucked back into the normal world, and then he was breathing again without realising he hadn't been before, breathing in great gasps of air.

He turned to look at Simon, at his worried face. Simon had bitten his lip in worry, and the place where Bran had split it was gleaming with a hint of blood again. He knew Simon didn't quite believe, knew Simon had lost something he'd had once, but -- but he had to try. "Jane's in danger," he said, still breathless. "We need to get to Will and Bran. We need to find them _now_. The Dark has Jane."

Simon looked for a moment as if he were going to laugh in Barney's face. Desperately Barney willed him to believe. In his mind he told Simon about the long walk through the cave to find the grail, reminded him of the creatures that had attacked them, of the thing that had towered over Jane... He willed Simon to remember Merriman, to remember the way he had walked, the way he had talked, the humour and affection that had sometimes stolen over that fierce face. He longed for Simon to remember the end -- the pool of calm that surrounded the Lady, the noble face of King Arthur...

"Come on then," Simon said, without letting anything show. He shut Jane's door behind him with a little bang. "You need to get your shoes on before we go running anywhere."

"Simon -- "

"Go _on_, Barney," Simon said, impatiently, giving him a little push. "I'll tell Mother and Father where we're going. I'll say... I'll say we're going to see Bran. And that Jane's already gone. Grab my coat for me."

Barney grinned at him, but then the feeling of urgency took over again and he ran into their room, dragging his shoes on and knotting the laces hastily. He tried not to think about Jane's damped down terror: it made him feel sick to think of her so alone and scared and yet not being allowed to -- and in any case, he told himself firmly, they were going to rescue her. They just needed to get to Will and Bran.

\---

"How are they even going to know they have to come?"

"They'll come."

Bran stood up. He was still holding the sword, his grip on it almost white-knuckled. "But how will they know they have to? Are you calling them? Or is it going to be one of those remarkable coincidences again? Jane's in danger, Will. This is _important_."

"I know that as well as you do," Will said, calmly. Then he snorted softly. "Probably better, actually. Don't worry. They're coming."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I can see them."

Bran could hear the almost smug smile in Will's voice, and muttered something none too flattering in return, turning to look down the hill. He _could_ see Barney, and then Simon, and John Rowlands coming up last; Barney was running ahead, anxious excitement on his face. Bran turned to Will, frowning a little. "They know?"

"Barney must have seen something," Will said. He stood up, waving to the others, and shouting for them to hurry. Barney arrived only a moment later, pink and breathless.

"Your brother's got Jane," he said to Bran, and maybe there was a hint of accusation in his voice, but he knew as they all did that Bran couldn't help it.

"You were right, Barney," Will said, after a moment, as John and Simon joined them. "The person you saw Jane with -- Michael -- _is_ Mordred. I don't know why I didn't realise... you wouldn't see something totally irrelevant, after all. I'm sorry. This is my fault. I let the Dark cloud my sight... in some ways, I've become too human, I suppose." He smiled, as he said the last, but Bran rolled his eyes.

"There's no need to lay blame on anyone. Let's just fix things."

"Take up your arms, then, my lord," Barney said. Bran looked up quickly, but there was no trace of irony or teasing in Barney's eyes. For a moment, nobody moved, and then John took the sword, still in its sheath and attached to its belt, and helped Bran put the belt on. Bran stood awkwardly, feeling strange at the weight of it around his waist. Eirias had never weighed so much -- but then, that sword had been meant by fate to be wielded by a boy, and so the world had worked with fate's design even if Gwyddno hadn't known who would take up the beauty he made.

"I feel ridiculous," he said, after a moment, because they were all looking at him, even _staring_ \-- apart from Simon, who stood with his hands in his pockets, looking at the ground.

Barney grinned at him, not quite overcome by the solemn moment. "You _look_ magnificent, which has to count for something, right?"

"It's a pity the best he can do is look magnificent and wave it around menacingly," Will said, and he was grinning too.

Simon shifted awkwardly and cleared his throat. "Bran," he said, and then wished everyone hadn't turned to look at him. He took his hands out of his pockets and held one out to Bran. "I'm sorry about what happened. I... I've been a bit of an ass. I take it back, everything I said about... you know what I said. Call it even?"

Bran didn't hesitate, but took Simon's hand and shook it, holding on for a moment and looking into Simon's eyes. He didn't see any hesitance there, nor any disbelief, but a kind of determination more worthy of the Simon he remembered. He smiled at him. "Let's. I'm sorry about hitting you."

Barney made a face at both of them. "Will you come _on_ already?"

"Yes," Will said, quietly. "It's time to go."


	6. Chapter 6

"Will!"

Barney's cry made all of them turn, but too late. Will was suddenly _stopped_ as he turned, trapped; caught into a sudden and unnatural stillness. Bran said something in Welsh that made John wince a little, but Bran paid no attention. Barney thought he looked more like a prince than ever, suddenly more adult and somehow magical. For a moment, he was reminded of Gumerry by the fierce look on Bran's face.

"It's a spell," Bran said, with annoyed certainty. "I don't know how, though. I didn't think the Dark could do this to him. I don't even know how I know what I know about it..."

John's deep voice was still calm. "What _do_ you know about it, bachgen?"

"Mordred can't be strong enough to catch him out of time or anything, or not from a distance, anyway," Bran said, stepping closer and pushing at Will's shoulder. Will didn't move an inch. "He's aware, but he can't do anything. How we're supposed to follow Mordred without Will, I don't know."

"Can't we do something to free Will?" Simon asked, tentatively. He frowned, looking at Will's face; there was something about that utter stillness that was disconcerting. Will couldn't even blink; his eyes were half closed in a blink already, the action halted along with everything else. "I mean... won't his blood and heart be stopped and everything, too?"

"I don't think that would trouble one of his kind," John said, thoughtfully. "I think we should try to free him, but I don't know what we can do."

"None of us have the right kind of magic," Barney said, frowning as he did when a painting wasn't coming out right. Simon relaxed a bit when he saw that: it was something normal, something _real_, and it somehow made the awful feeling that he was out of his depth go away. "I mean, I can see the future, and Bran's... well, Bran's _himself_, but that doesn't help."

"I'm sure if I only knew how, I _could_ do something," Bran said, unhappily. He looked down at the ground, catching sight of the sword strapped to his waist and pausing. "I wonder if it's like a cage or something -- the spell, I mean."

"You could cut it!"

John smiled at Simon's sudden relief, though he didn't seem to relax himself. "It is worth a try, I think."

Slowly, Bran drew the sword. Barney bit his lip. "Is it heavy?"

"Not exactly. It's not very easy to hold up like this, but..." Bran lifted the sword, hesitating for a moment. The sun glanced off the blade, almost dazzling. "What if I hurt Will?"

"I'll help you keep it steady, if you like," Barney said, hesitantly. He stepped forward, looking up at Bran as if for permission. It was awkward, but the blade didn't tremble at all as, together, they lifted it. Bran was biting his lip, his expression intense.

"Careful," John said, though his tone was carefully casual.

Bran took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment. The tip of the blade was close to Will's skin: close enough that a single wobble might actually have cut the skin and drawn blood. It looked as if Bran was praying, praying as hard as he could, but after only a few seconds he opened his eyes. "Ready?"

"Ready," Barney said. He looked as if he was gritting his teeth. "Three... two... one..."

The movement was awkward: Barney, smaller than Bran, didn't have quite the same reach, and so he almost lost hold as Bran lifted it a little. It sliced down through the air, cleanly, quickly, and instead of the simple hiss of the air parting before the blade they were all expecting, there was a sound of something snapping, and Will almost fell over. Barney let go of Excalibur to steady him, looking relieved. "Will!"

Will's hands caught at Barney's shoulders for support, gripping tightly, and for a moment his face turned a horrible white colour. He sucked in a breath of air, looking as if he were going to fall. Bran almost dropped Excalibur, but caught himself in time to shove it quickly into its sheath before he also grabbed Will, more pushing than helping him to sit down on the grass. His face, too, was paler that it should be, though you could hardly tell. "Are you alright?"

"I'll be fine in a minute," Will said, and even as they were watching John realised that his colour was already returning, his breathing already slowing and becoming natural again. "Thank you," he said, after a moment, smiling quickly at Barney, at Simon, at Bran. "I'm alright now. I'm glad you figured it out so quickly. That wouldn't have killed me, but, as you can see..."

Simon bit his lip. "If you're really alright, then..."

Will looked up at him, and nodded. "I haven't forgotten. Jane. But I have to confess, I'm not sure how to start."

Barney nodded. "It's my turn again, right?"

"If you can."

"I _have_ to," he said, firmly. Everybody sat, or stood, in silence, as he tried to concentrate. First he closed his eyes, and then he opened them again, looking somewhere into the distance, his eyes strangely focused. There was a deadly hush over them, as if they were all holding their breaths. After a moment, though, Barney just shook his head, groaning in disappointment. "I don't think I can. It makes my head hurt, but that's it."

"Here," Will said, beckoning him closer, and putting a hand on his shoulder. "Let's try together."

"But -- "

"I'm not prescient myself, but I might be able to help you," he said, patiently. He squeezed Barney's shoulder, hard. "We need to do this."

Barney's eyes flickered to meet his. Then he nodded, settling again, looking into Will's eyes in the same way as he had into the water, through the oil... for a moment, he was almost scared of what he might see, looking into -- _through_ \-- Will in that way. But he fought it back, biting his lip hard as he forced himself through into it. He felt Will with him, seeing, even though to him it was all confusion: there was Jane's voice, frightened and yet not, and a man's voice, harsh with power as he spoke to her, quieting her. Barney kept his eyes open until they smarted, desperately trying, trying to capture something in case Will couldn't.

The power that threw him back out of it and into himself was like a clap of thunder and a flash of lightning all at once, and Barney cried out as he fell back out of the cold and dark onto warm grass in the sunshine, clapping his hands over his ears and closing his eyes tightly. Simon lunged towards him, kneeling at his side with a frightened but determined expression on his face, as if he thought he could _do_ something.

Will, however, sat there as if unmoved, as if not touched at all by that spark of power. For a moment his eyes remained far away, and then he, too, snapped back to himself. It only showed in that he swayed a little, as if from an impact.

"Well?" Bran said, his impatience barely masked. Will nodded slightly.

"That worked, then?" Barney said, somewhat rhetorically. He was surprised at how weak he felt, how dizzy: his hands were even shaking, and his legs too.

"Are you alright there, bachgen?" John said, frowning. Simon touched his brother's forehead lightly.

"He's burning up."

"He'll be alright," Will said, getting to his feet. He didn't seem to be any the worse the wear for either the scrying or the spell that he'd been under before that. He took a deep breath. "He's just done too much in too short a time. We need to go, though. Simon -- "

"I'll stay with him," John said, quietly. "I don't think I want anything more to do with the world you're going into now."

Will nodded. Bran got up, too, and Simon did as well, giving Barney one last anxious look. "Where _are_ we going?"

Bran rolled his eyes. "Are you coming, or not?"

"I... I will come with you, no matter what, but -- "

Bran cut him off, his tone teasing but edged with some of the former belligerence. "If you're planning on coming with us, it's better we don't tell you in advance. We don't have time for you to run back to the hotel for another pair of trousers, now, do we?"

"I'm not scared," Simon said, narrowing his eyes.

Will cleared his throat. For a moment he met Bran's eyes, and then Simon's: there was something in his eyes, something serious and weary and fundamentally _calm_, that dried up the argument before it really began. "We've got to get on. We've got to save Jane, remember? Being scared isn't a shameful thing, anyway. It reminds you to be careful." He shot another glance at Bran as he said that. "We can't underestimate Mordred, remember. There's no guarantee we'll come out of this unscathed."

"There's no guarantee you'll come out of this at all," Barney said, in a small voice. "Simon... Be careful."

"I trust Will," Simon said, after a heartbeat. He smiled at his little brother. "We'll be fine. We'll be back, with Jane, in no time. You'll see."

Barney smiled back. "Go on, then."

Will stepped apart from the little group. He frowned in thought, and then muttered something under his breath. Bran, standing closest, caught the words but couldn't make any sense of them. "He's probably calling the doors," he said, softly, to Simon.

"The doors?"

"It's one of the ways an Old One can travel through time. We've done it together before without needing the doors, but I have a feeling that's more tiring for him. And he's already tired."

"He doesn't look it," Simon said, watching Will for a moment.

Bran shrugged, his eyes on Will the whole time. "He took the brunt of that attack for your brother. If Barney'd faced the whole of my brother's power, I suspect he'd be little more than a gibbering wreck by now, and that permanently. Don't underestimate Will just because he looks ordinary." He grinned, briefly, his tone lighter. "We can't all be as gorgeous as me, after all."

Will looked over his shoulder, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "Bran, come over here. Leave your ego behind, but bring Simon."

"Where are these... doors?" Simon asked, curiously. Will gave him a puzzled look.

"You can't see them?"

"He's an ordinary mortal," Bran said, with a shrug. "But there's nothing wrong with my eyes. Here, give me your hand." He grabbed Simon's hand before he'd even finished talking, pulling him along towards Will. "Just trust me, and it'll work fine. If you don't, we'll be down one man."

Simon hesitated. "What do you mean, down one man?"

"I mean you'll be left behind here! Look, do you want to save your sister or not?"

"Of _course_ I do!"

"Then come _on_," Bran said, and pulled again at his hand. John couldn't see the doors, but he thought he saw a shimmer, like the air over a hot engine, as first Bran, then Simon, and finally Will passed through something he couldn't quite make out. It was truly as if they'd just walked through a door, though they faded as soon as they stepped through so that they were gone almost immediately.

"They'll be back," Barney said, quietly.

"I hope so," John said, turning back to Barney and sitting down at his side. He couldn't help another glance at the spot where the three had vanished. "Bran's... special to me."

"He's the son you never had," Barney said, almost dreamily. He shook his head, shaking something off. "I'm sorry, right now I can't help seeing things like that. Do you wish you had had a child, Mister Rowlands?"

"Just John," he reminded him. For a moment, he didn't answer, and then he smiled and shrugged. "I'm sure I could have done right by a son, but maybe I got the best parts of this deal. Owen raises him and shouts at him and takes care of him, puts food in his mouth and clothes on his back. I don't have to have any of the pain, but I still get my fair share of the joy and pride. As it is, I'm glad I never had a child with Blodwen. It... who knows what would have come of it? And if it was just a normal child, where would I be now? No, I think this way has been best."

Barney paused for a moment, then looked up at John. "I could scry, to see if they're coming home safely."

"And what good would that do? No," he said, gently, "I'd rather not know, if it's to be bad, and besides, I have faith in those boys, and especially in Bran. Besides, you're too tired."

"It's hard, not to reach out to see how they're doing, now I know how."

"I think you'd really best not." John frowned, briefly. "I'm not sure, but... it tires you out, and you can be attacked in some way while you're doing it. Perhaps the Dark is giving you this compulsion?"

"I never thought of that!" Barney said, a little stricken. "Let's talk about something else, so I won't think about it so much. Let's talk about, I don't know, music. Is it hard to learn how to play a harp? Could you teach me?"

\---

As Will stepped through the doors, last, they vanished behind him. Simon flinched a little, wondering how he would ever get back if something happened to Bran and Will, but a moment later he was squaring his shoulders, determined to be as brave and unflinching as the other two. Still, he remembered with a sick sort of dread the way the Dark twisted things, the way that, at any moment, they might start doubting each other, or be overcome by a wave of terror enough to make them cower like scared children.

He shook the thought away, keeping his eyes on Will for a moment. It was like when they'd been with Gumerry, he thought, with a pang. As long as he stayed close to Will, he'd be fine.

"Should I be expecting an attack?" Bran asked, glancing at Will.

"No. Not exactly. I didn't bring us to the exact point in this place that Barney saw. I want to figure out where we are, before we try to fight here."

"You don't know where we are?" Simon's voice squeaked a little, and he flushed. It hadn't done that in _years_. At least, he thought, biting his lip, neither of them seemed to notice. They seemed to be in a world of their own as their eyes locked, speaking without words, planning something... For a moment, he felt rather alone. But Will raised his head to look at him, then, as if he suddenly remembered he'd spoken.

"I do know where we are, and what time we're in. But... I don't understand. I've been this far into the future before -- in a sense. It shouldn't be like this unless we've already failed."

"The time paradox will just hurt your head, Simon," Bran said, rolling his eyes. "Best not to ask."

"This is the future?"

"A potential future," Will said, absently. He turned to survey the land around them. "We haven't actually moved, in terms of our location on the earth's surface. Not by much, in any case. I'd say that we stand about where Tywyn used to stand."

Simon looked around, incredulously. He couldn't see anything that indicated there'd ever been _anything_ there, let alone a town like Tywyn. It looked more like the beginning of the world than somewhere near the end -- or perhaps simply another planet altogether.

Bran looked even more shocked than he did. "Duw... This was Tywyn? But..."

"Just look at the shape of the land," Will said, softly. "This is the potential future of this place. Unless we change it, now. It's a place of power for the Dark. But that helps me, too. Magic belongs here as it doesn't in your time."

"Where do we go, then?"

For a moment, Will looked indecisive. Then he smiled a little, beckoning them both closer. "I'm going to have to move us all using my own power. There's no time to get there any other way. The final battlefield _must_ be Camlann. I should have taken us there to start with, but... I'll take us to somewhere a little further away, so we can see what Mordred is doing before we charge in there. We mustn't forget that he has a hostage."

"I thought you couldn't do something like that," Simon said, biting his lip. "Transport us like that without the doors, I mean."

"The power of all the Old Ones rests in me, now," Will said, with a slight smile. "Awaiting a time of need. I'd call this a time of need, wouldn't you?"

And so he took their hands, holding them tightly, as if he was afraid something dreadful would happen if he let go. Slowly, Simon returned the pressure and, glancing sideways, grasped Bran's hand.

"Ready," he said, and was surprised that his voice didn't tremble. He closed his eyes.

"Ready," Bran said, squeezing Will's hand. And then the world spun around them.

\---

"Do you believe my brother will come for you?"

Jane didn't say anything for a moment. She just crouched beside the throne Mordred sat on, miserably aware of how she'd been taken in... and yet her mind was clouded, too, so that thoughts couldn't quite form themselves. She hugged her knees. Her brother? Simon, or Barney? No -- his brother. His brother, Bran. Would he come? "Yes," she said, aloud, and Mordred shifted in his chair, reaching down to pat her head.

"There's a good girl," he said, mockingly. She wanted to hit him. Irrationally, all she could suddenly think about was that, _yes_, Bran was coming, and she didn't want him to see her like this. Struggling greatly against his power, as he looked afar -- looked for Bran -- she got to her feet. It felt as if she were lifting the sky, like the legend of the Titan Atlas, bearing the weight of the sky on his shoulders...

"Michael," she said, to prove she still could.

"Be quiet," he said, absently, his eyes still focused on a point somewhere in the distance. Jane took a deep breath and then carefully moved two steps away from the throne. She felt better immediately: her thoughts were her own, and she was only moving through custard rather than through treacle. She took another step away, lifting her head and doing her best to squash the flutter of fear in her stomach.

"Michael," she said, again. This time, he looked at her, turning fast like a striking snake.

"_Mordred_," he hissed, and then, alarm sneaking into his voice: "How are you doing that?"

"You look quite like Bran, sometimes," she said, her voice shaking a little. "Not right now. You look like Hastings -- the Rider -- now, a bit. But I thought you and Bran were alike. You really are Arthur's son, aren't you? You could do so much better than this, you know. You could _help_ the Light. Even now, you could... if you set me free, and spoke to Will and Bran instead of fighting them... "

"_Help_?" He gave her a contemptuous look. "I am older than my brother. It should have been me. I should have been the Pendragon. The Old Ones will give me nothing. And my brother stole my birthright."

"But you're Morgan Le Fay's son, aren't you? The son of a witch? Maybe -- "

"The son of a lady, though they'd never respect that," he spat. "They always said she was evil and worked bad magic, but they were just scared. She had power, power like they'd never seen except from the Lords of the Dark. But no matter who my mother was, I was Arthur's oldest son. I should have been the Pendragon."

"Maybe it did matter who your mother was," Jane said, biting her lip hard. She felt uncomfortable, standing where she was, but her legs were trembling and she didn't think she could take a step back without betraying to him how weak she was. "Bran's Guinevere's child, isn't he? So maybe he just had a better claim."

"I'm older than him," Mordred said, persistant as a sulky child. His hands were in fists at his sides.

Jane looked at him, and said nothing. There seemed to be nothing to say, and she was rapidly losing her strength just in standing where she was without sinking down again. She didn't want to give him the satisfaction of seeing that. She looked, then, to the horizon, wondering if perhaps she saw moving figures there. Quickly she turned her head back to him, wondering if she could help somehow -- buy them time to do something while he didn't see them, distract Mordred somehow... She found the strength, somewhere, to take another step backwards. She felt a little better again almost immediately.

"So... after they rejected me, my mother raised me to be the Pendragon for the Dark," Mordred said, calmer again, a cruel smile twisting his face. She looked at him and wondered why she'd ever thought him handsome, and why she'd ever thought he looked like Bran. Carefully, she took another tiny step back, and another. He didn't seem to notice. "It's the stuff legends are made of, isn't it? Brother against brother. Like Cain and Abel. The ultimate evil, a brother-slaying -- something like that will bring the Dark back, and my mother with it. Even if he wins, he will open that door and the Dark will return, and I'll win in the end."

"No!"

Mordred's eyes glinted, a little. He grinned, showing his teeth. "Yes, little Jane. Yes. There's nothing anyone can do now. The Dark's coming back."


	7. Chapter 7

Jane felt as if she stood there forever, without breathing, without moving, just staring at Mordred with his awful voice ringing in her ears. She couldn't wrench her thoughts away from the sickening dread that suddenly enveloped her: Bran would come to rescue her, but it was a trap, a trap he couldn't escape without falling into the trap within the trap, and -- she took another step back from the throne, clenching her fists. "The Dark will lose. The Dark always loses."

"Have you ever heard of the Dark Ages?" Mordred asked, settling back into his throne. There was almost a bored note in his voice now. "Aptly named, don't you think?"

"I -- "

"The Dark isn't something you can banish," he said, disdainful. "It lives in every single human heart. Yours, Bran's, your brothers'... There is a price at which every heart can be bought, for any purpose at all. My brother would leave you here to rot slowly if I threatened to hurt Owen Davies. And so the Dark takes root."

Jane shook her head, but despair clutched at her again. She thought she should say something -- she remembered the flicker of movement coming closer, the figures on the horizon -- but she couldn't think of anything. She sank down to her knees and let Mordred's power sweep over her.

"Hey there, Jenny-oh," someone said, soft as a breath and right by her ear. "Didn't think you were the giving up kind."

Fingers brushed her shoulder and she found she was able to sit up straight again, able to look up. Bran walked past her, drawing his sword with a swish of steel. If it was too heavy for him, it didn't show now. Simon came up beside her, crouching down and putting his hand on her arm, but he didn't seem able to say anything. Will walked past them, his eyes darting from Bran to Mordred and back again: he didn't spare a glance for the two Drews, as if they had suddenly become unimportant, insignificant in comparison.

"You did come," Mordred said. His eyes were fixed on Bran then, a twisted smile on his face as he stood. He reached down beside his throne, picking up a sword in its sheath. He didn't draw it yet. "You have no idea how long I've been imagining this moment."

Bran rolled his eyes. "Spare me the clichéd speech, _please_. I just want to get this over with."

Mordred's eyes narrowed. "I'll spare you nothing, brother mine. After all, you and yours have been merciless with me."

"Nobody of the Light ever harmed you," Will said, softly. A calm seemed to surround him, a self-assurance that Jane was sure she'd never truly seen in him before. He was Will, and he was more. It was like he'd shed the boy in him, and stepped into another skin. "Nor ever would."

"You come here to vanquish me, do you not?"

"I suppose you got your flair for dramatics from your mother," Bran said, coldly. He stepped between Will and Mordred, raising Excalibur higher. Jane realised that he was claiming the fight for himself, pushing Will back out of it again. Horror welled up in her again and swept her under, but she found she still couldn't really speak. She caught sight of Mordred's smirk. It made her tremble with fury. Simon looked at her worriedly, but neither of them said anything -- she wondered if either of them _could_.

"It's a fair guess, since she was the only one who ever gave me anything," Mordred said. It was almost a snarl. "The Light didn't even give me my birthright."

"It was never yours!"

But Will spoke again. "You _could_ have been the Pendragon, Mordred. You were the first son of Arthur. You could have been the answer to all our riddles, the embodiment of all our hopes. As much as Bran was."

A snarl again. "Then why wasn't I?"

Jane wondered if Will could see the expression on Bran's face as clearly as she could. There was betrayal in it, mingling with the anger. But he said nothing.

"Mordred. You served the Dark from the very moment you were conceived," Will said, flatly. "Your mother determined the course of your life. The Light could not have altered it. If we'd taken you, your mother's plan would still have come true, you would have resented us... You were the first son of Arthur, but you were a curse to us. Even if the time to choose had come and you'd chosen away from your mother, then it would have been too late. But Bran was born, at the right time... the true son of King Arthur, unshaped and ready. And Guinevere gave him freely."

"I was only a tool to be used?" Bran asked, softly. His eyes met Will's. Will shook his head, but Jane saw that he wasn't really saying no.

"I never thought of you like that, but you were a tool. You were _our_ tool, but -- you were not just a tool to us. To me, at least. In a million lifetimes, a million different circumstances... I would always have chosen you, Bran."

"Always the Light uses the tools that come to hand," Mordred said, scornfully. The look that passed between Bran and Will seemed to anger him. "Look at those two!"

Jane felt his eyes on her almost as a physical blow. Simon put his arms around her as if to shield her.

"The Light will leave you to die," Mordred said, softly. "The Light doesn't care what happens to you and your brother, little Jane. Soon you'll know the hard cruelty at the core of the Light, when this one flees the world, leaving you mortals to die and the Dark to rise."

"I won't flee," Will said, at the same moment as Simon's head rose and he somehow found his voice.

"I trust Will," he said, somehow without wavering, though Jane felt that he was trembling. "I put my trust in the Light. Will is going to keep us safe, keep the Dark from rising, and take us all home."

The look Will gave Simon was incredibly warm with gratitude and tinged with surprise, and Jane realised she'd never seen him like that before. There'd been the calm assurance that came with power, yes, but it was like Simon had given something new to him, suddenly given him a true belief in himself. His shoulders squared, his stance firmed, and when he turned to look at Mordred again his voice rang with unexpected power. "You think to bring the Dark down upon our heads, to consume the world, even after the Light's hands cut the silver from the tree? You are one man alone. You could reconsider, you know. This choice is one you can still make. Turn aside from the Dark, and let go of the hatred that burns inside your heart. We do not deserve it."

"Arthur betrayed my mother," Mordred said, fiercely, and he finally did draw his sword. It looked much like Excalibur, but where Bran's sword appeared to be tipped with light, the steel of Calent was dark, with a sinister gleam. He grinned at Bran. "We have something in common, you know. Arthur betrayed your mother, too."

"No," Bran said, raising his sword again. Something in him knew how to fight, Jane realised. Perhaps only in that place, that time, with that sword in his hand. But he was ready. "My father was twice betrayed. And twice he forgave. And my mother never betrayed me as Morgan betrayed you."

"My mother betrayed no one!" Mordred said, his voice higher, somehow like the whine of an angry child, though terrible with the promise of the Dark. He flung himself forward and upon Bran. The two blades crashed with a sickening sound, and Jane found herself clutching at Simon's shirt, wanting and yet unable to look away.

"You're wrong, Mordred," Bran said, grimly. Somehow he pushed Mordred's blade aside, leaping backwards. "See things through your own eyes, not your mother's!"

"See through your own eyes, not the Light's!" Mordred countered. Jane glanced away from them and towards Will. The look on his face was somehow completely alien -- he looked nothing like the boy whose appearance always seemed so ordinary, so reassuring. She realised that she saw the other side to him, the side that had become a Lord of the Light.

She wondered if he knew that in that moment he had more power than the rest of the Circle combined. She didn't know what he was doing, but she felt the power as it swept over her, cleansing her of something, so that she slumped in Simon's arms, suddenly too tired to look. Mordred's magic was coming apart, she thought, and just as she thought that she heard Simon gasp.

"The sky," he whispered, and she opened her eyes wearily to see that the darkness of the place was falling away.

"What is he _doing_?"

"Evening the playing field, I think," Simon said, but softly. Beneath their feet, where there had been hard cold earth before, she realised that grass was beginning to grow -- not the straggling, yellowed grass that had been there before, but real, thick grass. "I think he's trying to make the future be as the Light saw it. As it's meant to be."

"All that power for nothing," Mordred sneered at Will as he dodged a slash of Bran's sword, but Jane realised that he was breathless, and that he was moving back before Bran's onslaught. She guessed that breaking his spells weakened him somehow. It was strange to watch Bran fighting: the way he moved, like a real warrior, the way he handled the sword, though she _knew_ he'd never really learnt how. She moved a little closer to Simon, and he tightened his arms around her protectively.

It happened almost too quickly to see: they clashed again, sparks flying as the two swords struck each other and glanced off. Somehow Mordred recovered faster than Bran -- perhaps it was because he'd truly earned the skills for himself, truly knew how to fight. Maybe it was the benefit of experience. But he lunged forward as Bran wavered, slashing, and Bran cried out in pain or anger as the blade slashed his shoulder. His shirt was cut, and blood welled from a cut beneath. Jane hid her face in Simon's shoulder and he held her tighter, letting her hide, muttering what might have been reassurances, stroking her hair like she was a kid just woken from a nightmare.

"Do something, Will!" Simon called to him.

There was frustration naked in Will's tone. "I can't! It's Bran's fight!"

Jane forced herself to look up again. Mordred and Bran were a few paces apart, then, both panting for breath. Their eyes were still locked, and Jane could hardly recognise Bran, as a kind of hatred twisted his face. "Bran!"

For a moment, Mordred's eyes flickered over to her, and he opened his mouth as if to say something. But Bran saw his opening and made his own lunge. Excalibur's blade sank deeply into Mordred's body.

She had been expecting something spectacular, somehow, when the final blow was struck. But Mordred didn't even cry out. He just fell to his knees as Bran tugged the blade out of him again, blood spattering everywhere. For a moment all anyone could hear was the ragged breathing of the two combatants.

"Finish it," Mordred said, at last, looking up at Bran. One of his hands covered the wound at his side, but Jane saw the blood all over his hands, soaking through his clothes. It made her feel sick to realise he was actually _dying_. Beside her, Simon stirred as if he thought he should do something. She clutched at him and he stopped, giving her a concerned look. She didn't bother to look back at him, but kept her eyes on Mordred's expression, now twisted with pain. "Brother, please."

Bran's voice was cold and hard. "Would you have given me mercy?"

And Jane remembered. She scrambled to her feet. "Bran! Don't kill him!"

"Shut up," Mordred said, quickly, but there was no power left in his voice. Jane pushed Simon aside and hurried to Bran's side, pulling him back from Mordred's side.

"If you kill him now, you'll let the Dark in," she said, breathlessly. Will's eyes widened.

"Of course," he said, looking down at Mordred almost pityingly. "You can't kill him, Bran. He'll have to die by his own hand, or keep on suffering. If you kill him, you open the door for the Dark. Fratricide is one of the uglier things a man can do. Whichever of you won, he thought he could bring the Dark back. It won't be the case if you step back, now -- this is a thing he _could_ survive."

Mordred had gone paler than ever. "Please," he whispered, wetting his lips with difficulty. Will moved quickly, retrieving Calent and carrying it back to him, putting it by his hand.

"I'm sorry," he said. Mordred glared up at him, not moving to take the sword, but he just shrugged and turned away. "Have it your own way, Mordred. I... for my part, I'm sorry. Maybe there was something the Light could have done to save you from your mother, save you from this end..."

His voice was suddenly softer. "My mother... She meant me to die."

"Yes." Will ran his fingers through his hair, not looking back at him. "She knew you'd have to die, that you couldn't defeat the Light's champion with the Dark gone. I don't know quite how she knew so much about the future, but I suspect she was a seer. She didn't want to give anything up to serve the Light, and so she lost everything. She seduced Bran's father and conceived you, to try and throw the prophecies awry. When that didn't work, she sent you here, hoping to ensure her own return by doing so."

"How do you know so much?"

"The pieces only just fell into place for me, too." Will shook his head, looking up at Bran, flicking a glance at Simon and Jane. He dismissed Mordred and his plight with that. "Shall we go?"

Bran stood looking down at his brother for a long moment, and then turned away as well, nodding. "Yeah. Take us home, Will."

\----

"They'll be back soon."

John frowned slightly, carefully setting Barney down. "I hope you're right. Why did you want to come here instead?"

"I want to see them right away," Barney said, with a shrug. "This will be where they come back through. Did you pick up the first aid kit, too?"

"I've got it here." John sat down on the grass beside Barney, moving a little stiffly. "It's a little disconcerting, the way you know all this. Are you sure Bran's hurt?"

"I'm not... I can't be _sure_. It's like... either I see what is happening, simultaneously with it happening, or I see a potential future. But... I bet you can never really predict the future, not properly. Someone does one tiny thing, and everything changes." Barney bit his lip. "If I wanted to, I think I could do that on purpose. But it feels sort of wrong. Like it'd be something the Dark'd do, not me."

"I think if you're uncomfortable with it, then you shouldn't do it."

"Right." Barney smiled, stretching a bit. "You know, you needn't have carried me all the way up here. I think I'm okay, now."

"I wouldn't want to chance it. I'm not so old that carrying you such a little way would trouble me, you know."

"You're not old at all," Barney said, with another of his smiles. He closed his eyes, lifting his head a little as if to feel the breeze. "Here they come."

Just as he spoke, something seemed to shimmer before them. Bran stepped out of it first, pulling Jane by the hand, and then just behind him came Will, guiding Simon. John took them all in at a glance, realising with a kind of twist in his stomach that Barney had been _right_. Bright blood stained Bran's clothes -- soaking his shirt and spattering his jeans -- and he was paler than he should have been. "Bran!"

"I'm alright," Bran said, with a rueful smile. "It's a scratch."

"A scratch!" Jane sounded indignant. "Stop trying to be a hero, Bran. It's not impressing anyone."

"Barney knew you'd be hurt. I've got the first aid kit with me."

Bran huffed softly, but his tone was teasing. "No faith in us, huh? Had to keep watching?"

Barney smiled up at him. "I was _worried_. I knew you'd come through, but... it was hard, being left behind. I wanted to know if there was anything I could do to help, so when I saw you were wounded and that you'd come up out here... We found a spare shirt for you, too. So your Da doesn't have to see that you got hurt. Though... I didn't foresee the mess you'd make of your trousers."

It was Jane that pushed Bran to sit down where John could reach him. She crouched down next to him, a hand on his shoulder and her eyes fixed worriedly on his face. "I'm sorry. This is all my fault. I always blunder into things like that... first Mr Hastings, when we were little, and then with... Mordred. I didn't even have the excuse of being little this time."

"It's alright," Will said, softly. "The Dark can be charming, when there's something it wants. Even I nearly fell to its temptation once, and only the fact that the Lady was there saved me."

Jane shook her head, but she said nothing. She watched as John Rowlands carefully bandaged Bran's shoulder. "Does it hurt a lot?"

Bran flexed his arm a little once John tied the bandage off. He shook his head. "It's fine. I barely noticed it when it happened, to be honest. All I really thought about was that it gave me an opening."

"I'm _sorry_," Jane whispered, and then suddenly flung herself at him, wrapping her arms around him and nearly knocking him over. Simon's mouth dropped open in surprise while Barney grinned and Bran awkwardly returned the hug -- giving John a look as if he was begging for help.

"There now," he said, awkwardly, pushing her away as soon as seemed polite. She pulled back, flushing a little.

"Sorry," she said again. She bit her lip, looking around to avoid having to look at Bran, and then frowned. "Where did Will go?"

Bran almost jumped to his feet, pushing past her. "Will?"

"Wait," Barney said, to Simon and Jane and John. "Just wait. It'll be easier."

Bran caught up with Will, catching him by the arm and making him turn and face him. "Why're you slinking off now? Aren't we your friends?"

"You are, but -- "

"I could understand doing this before, but... we know you now, don't we? We know who you really are?"

"I'm not so sure about that," Will said, but he smiled a little. Bran put his hands on his shoulders firmly, looking into his eyes.

"You're not going to take our memories away again, are you?"

"I... No." Will shook his head. He smiled a bit again. "There seems no point. You've all dealt with the loss of the Light, you're all adult now -- more or less -- and can understand... and I don't want to have to keep returning your memories every time I get into trouble. You'd probably get angry with me if I _did_ pull something like that."

Bran's grip on Will's shoulders tightened a little. "You've got that right. I... Now that I remember, will I be able to go to the Light? In the end? To be with my parents?"

Will shook his head. "I don't know. You made the choice so young, it seems wrong to bind you to it... But it's not my decision, Bran. I don't know what will happen, but it's not in my hands. I can't help but think, though... Merriman said you only had one choice. One chance."

"But he didn't foresee this..."

"Nobody did." A brief grin. "I thought my watch would be boring. And lonely."

"I'll go with you, you know. Anywhere that you go. We're... We're like my father and Merriman, aren't we? You're my dewin, but I'm your champion. Your sword."

"If I ever need a sword again, you'll be the first man I come to," Will said.

"Man...?" Bran said, thoughtfully, and then he sighed. "I suppose I _have_ grown up. Will... be truthful. Are we ever going to see you again?"

"I hope so," Will said, with another quick grin. He stepped forward, hugging Bran, and Bran accepted that embrace, closing his eyes and returning it: holding Will tightly, fiercely. When they drew apart, their eyes met for a moment, like the sealing of a promise. "But I have to go now. For now. I have to see that all's well in all the world."

"Won't your aunt wonder where you've gone?"

Will shrugged. "I have ways of dealing with these things. Farewell, Bran."

"Hwyl fawr am nawr, Will."

Will turned away, then, and the air shimmered before him, like a gate even Bran couldn't quite see now. He stood his ground as he watched Will disappear through it, though a part of him longed to follow. He heard footsteps behind him, and turned with a smile for Jane.

"He's gone."

She looked sad. "Will he ever come back?"

"He promised," Bran said, and he gave Jane a quick hug -- natural, now, easier than before. He spoke, then, to the air behind her where, maybe, a door had stood. "Make it soon, Will."


End file.
